Our teacher, the eminent scholar Abū al-ʿAbbās Ibn Taymiyyah, used to say, “This ḥadith is fabricated, even though it appears in the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd.” The same verdict was given by our teacher al-Mizzī, and I hold it as well.

I add: al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAdī included the report in his al-Kāmil, transmitting it from Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān—nicknamed Būmah—through Yaḥyā ibn ʿAmr ibn Mālik al-Nukrī, from his father, from Abū al-Jawzāʾ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ had a scribe called al-Sijill. Concerning him the Exalted said: ‘On the Day We fold up the heaven like the folding of a scroll for writings’ (21:104)—just as the scroll is folded over the written page, so shall We fold up the heaven.”

Al-Bayhaqī recorded the same through Abū Nāṣir ibn Qatādah, from Abū ʿAlī al-Raffāʾ, from ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, from Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm, from Yaḥyā ibn ʿAmr ibn Mālik with this chain. Yet Yaḥyā is extremely weak and cannot be relied on for corroboration. Allah knows best.

Stranger still is what al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb and Ibn Mandah reported from Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd al-Baghdādī—known as Ḥamdān—through Ibn Numayr, ʿUbayd Allāh, and Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar, who said: “The Prophet ﷺ had a scribe named Sijill; then Allah revealed: ‘On the Day We fold up the heaven like the folding of a scroll for writings’ (21:104).” Ibn Mandah remarked, “It is an odd report, transmitted only by Ḥamdān.” Al-Barqānī quoted Abū al-Fatḥ al-Azdī as saying, “It is uniquely transmitted by Ibn Numayr—if it is authentic.”

I say: This narration from Ibn ʿUmar is as objectionable as the one from Ibn ʿAbbās. In fact, reports to the contrary have come from both of them. Al-Wālibī and al-ʿAwfī relate from Ibn ʿAbbās that about this verse he said, “It is like the folding of the sheet over the writing.” Mujāhid said the same.

Ibn Jarīr commented, “In established Arabic usage al-sijill means ‘the scroll’. No Companion is known by the name Sijill, nor is there any basis for saying that al-Sijill is the name of an angel,” as was reported through Abū Kurayb from Ibn Yamān, who said: Abū al-Wafāʾ al-Ashjaʿī told us, from his father, from Ibn ʿUmar regarding the verse, “On the Day We fold up the heaven like the folding of a scroll for writings” (21:104): “Al-Sijill is an angel. Whenever a plea for forgiveness ascends, Allah says, ‘Record it as light.’” Bundār narrated from Muʾammal, from Sufyān: “I heard al-Suddi say the same.”

Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir expressed the same view in the report transmitted by Abū Kurayb from Ibn al-Mubārak, from Maʿrūf ibn Kharrabūdh, from