I said:
This ḥadīth is the very report for which people criticized Muḥammad ibn Yūnus al-Kudaymī; they repudiated it on his account and deemed his teacher in the chain strange. Yet there is nothing in the report that sound reason or the Sacred Law would find objectionable. Indeed, the Ṣaḥīḥ relates—under the story of Jurayj the devotee—that the child of the adulteress was enabled to speak. Jurayj asked him, “O Abā Yūnus, whose son are you?” and he replied, “The shepherd’s son,” whereupon the Children of Israel realized Jurayj’s innocence from the accusation leveled against him. That narrative has already been cited.

Moreover, this ḥadīth has reached us through a route other than al-Kudaymī, although that chain is also unusual.

Al-Bayhaqī said: Abū Saʿd ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī ʿUthmān the ascetic informed us; Abū’l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jumayʿ al-Ghassānī at the port of Ṣaydā narrated to us; al-ʿAbbās ibn Maḥbūb ibn ʿUthmān ibn ʿUbayd, Abū’l-Faḍl, narrated to us; my father related to us; my grandfather, Shāṣūnah ibn ʿUbayd, related to us; Muʿarriḍ ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muʿarriḍ ibn Muʿayqīb told me, from his father, from his grandfather, who said:

“I performed the Farewell Pilgrimage. I entered a house in Mecca where I saw the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—his face gleaming like the full moon. I heard from him something astonishing: a man from Yamāmah brought a newborn boy, wrapped in a cloth, on the very day of his birth. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ asked, ‘Young boy, who am I?’ The child replied, ‘You are the Messenger of Allah.’ He said, ‘May Allah bless you.’ After that the boy never spoke another word.”

Al-Bayhaqī added: Our teacher Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥāfiẓ mentioned the same report through Abū’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Warrāq, from Abū’l-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Khalaf ibn Muḥammad al-Maqrī al-Qazwīnī, from Abū’l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās ibn Muḥammad ibn Shāṣūnah, with this identical chain.

Al-Ḥākim said: A trustworthy colleague of ours related to me, from Abū ʿUmar al-Zāhid, who said, “When I entered Yemen I went to Ḥardah, asked about this ḥadīth, found descendants of Shāṣūnah there, and was taken to his grave, which I visited.”

Al-Bayhaqī remarked: This ḥadīth also has a basis in the reports transmitted by the Kufans through a mursal chain that differs regarding the moment the child spoke. He then cited the report of Wakīʿ, from al-Aʿmash, from Shamir ibn ʿAṭiyyah, from one of his teachers:

“The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was brought a boy who had grown up yet had never spoken at all. He asked, ‘Who am I?’ The boy replied, ‘You are the Messenger of Allah.’”