Al-Ḥākim also recorded this ḥadīth in his Mustadrak, on the authority of Abū Hurayrah from the Prophet ﷺ, with similar wording (1).
Abū Nuʿaym ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad al-Isfarāʾīnī—whose report is cited by al-Khaṭīb—said, “This can refer to no one but Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī.”
Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn stated, “He is truthful; there is no objection to him” (2). On another occasion he remarked, “Even if lying were entirely permissible for him, his sense of dignity would still keep him from it” (3).
Ibn Abī Ḥātim relates: I heard my father say, “Al-Shāfiʿī was a jurist through and through, unfailingly truthful in speech” (4).
It is reported from Abū Zurʿah that he said, “Al-Shāfiʿī never erred in any ḥadīth” (5); a like judgment is also attributed to Abū Dāwūd (6).
The Imam of the Imams, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Khuzaymah, was asked, “Is there any Sunnah that failed to reach al-Shāfiʿī?” He replied, “No” (7). His meaning was that the material reached al-Shāfiʿī in one form or another—at times with its full chain, at times as a mursal report, and at times with a break in the chain—exactly as appears in his books. Allah knows best.
Ḥarmalah said, “I heard al-Shāfiʿī say, ‘In Baghdad they named me Nāṣir al-Sunnah (Defender of the Sunnah)’” (8).
= Its History (vol. 2, p. 398; Dar al-Bashār ed.); Ibn ‘Asākir, Tārīkh Dimashq (51/326); and al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-Kamāl (24/363), via al-Nuḍr al-Kindī. Its text and isnād are very weak, but its concluding phrase, “O Allah, You have let them taste at the beginning a punishment or calamity, so let its end be a blessing,” is narrated by al-Tirmidhī (no. 3908) and by Aḥmad in al-Musnad (1/242) from Ibn ‘Abbās. Al-Tirmidhī graded this hadith hasan ṣaḥīḥ. A parallel report appears from Ibn ‘Umar in Musnad al-Shihāb of al-Qaḍā‘ī (2/341), so this addition is established. The opening phrase, “Do not curse Quraysh, for its scholars fill the earth with knowledge,” is, however, very weak, as noted above.
(1) I did not find it in al-Ḥākim’s work.
(2) al-Ḥilya (9/97); Siyar A‘lām al-Nubalā’ (10/47).
(3) In the first edition it reads “min al-kadhib” (of lying). Majma‘ al-Udabā’ (17/314).
(4) From here up to “ṣidūq al-lisān” (truthful of tongue) is absent in the Ẓā and B editions.
(5) Siyar A‘lām al-Nubalā’ (10/47).
(6) Siyar A‘lām al-Nubalā’ (10/47).
(7) Al-Dhahabī records in Siyar A‘lām al-Nubalā’ (10/54) that Yaḥyā ibn Manṣūr al-Qāḍī said: “I heard the imam of imams, Ibn Khuzayma, say—and I asked him, ‘Do you know of any sunna of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ concerning halal and haram that al-Shāfi‘ī did not commit to writing?’ He replied, ‘No.’”
(8) Tārīkh Baghdād (2/68); Siyar A‘lām al-Nubalā’ (10/47).