ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār said:

“After that I met Kaʿb the Rabbi and questioned him, and the two accounts agreed down to the very last word—save that Kaʿb recited it as: ‘blind eyes, deaf ears, and sealed hearts.’ (1)

Al-Bukhārī (2) also transmitted this report through a narrator identified simply as ʿAbd Allāh—some said he was Ibn Rajāʾ, others said ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ, and the latter is the stronger view—on the authority of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Salamah al-Mājishūn, from Hilāl ibn ʿAlī, with the same wording. Al-Bukhārī further noted (3): “Saʿīd narrated it from Hilāl, from ʿAṭāʾ, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām,” and recorded it in suspended (muʿallaq) form.

Al-Bayhaqī, by way of Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān, reported: “Abū Ṣāliḥ—namely ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ, the scribe of al-Layth—told us; he was told by Khālid ibn Yazīd, from Saʿīd ibn Abī Hilāl, from Usāmah, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār, from Ibn Salām, who used to say:

‘We indeed find the description of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: “We have sent you as a witness and a bearer of glad tidings (and a warner, and a protection for the unlettered) (4). You are My servant and My Messenger; I have named you al-Mutawakkil. He is neither rough nor hard-hearted, nor loud-voiced in the marketplaces. He does not repay evil with its like; rather, he pardons and forgives. I shall not take him unto Me until, through him, I straighten the crooked creed so that the testimony There is no god but Allah is proclaimed. Through him I will open blind eyes, deaf ears, and sealed hearts (5).”’

ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār added: “The Laythī informed me that he heard Kaʿb al-Aḥbār say exactly what Ibn Salām said.”

Another chain from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām is recorded by al-Tirmidhī: “Zayd ibn Akhzam al-Ṭāʾī al-Baṣrī narrated to us; Abū Qutaybah—Salam ibn Qutaybah—narrated to us; Abū Mawdūd al-Madanī narrated to me; ʿUthmān ibn al-Ḍaḥḥāk narrated to us, from Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām, from his father, from his grandfather, who said:

‘It is written in the Torah that this is the description of Muḥammad, and that Jesus son of Mary will be buried with him.’

Abū Mawdūd then remarked, ‘One burial-space (6) still remains (7) in the room.’

Al-Tirmidhī concluded: ‘This ḥadīth is sound (ḥasan).’

Thus he referred to the narrator as ʿUthmān ibn al-Ḍaḥḥāk, whereas the well-known form is al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn ʿUthmān al-Madanī. Our teacher, the ḥāfiẓ al-Mizzī, stated the same in his work “al-Aṭrāf” (8), quoting Ibn ʿAsākir.