This ḥadīth, reported on the authority of Mālik, is extremely rare; al-Qudāmī alone transmitted it, and he is weak (1). Nevertheless, we shall adduce supporting reports from other lines of transmission.

Among them is the Prophet’s statement:

“I was brought forth through lawful marriage, not through fornication.”

ʿAbd al-Razzāq (2) said: Ibn ʿUyaynah told us, from Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad, from his father Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir, regarding the verse, ‘There has certainly come to you a Messenger from among yourselves’ (al-Tawbah 9:128). He said, “Nothing of the births of the Age of Ignorance touched him.” He further related that the Messenger of God ﷺ said:

“I came forth from lawful wedlock; I did not come forth from fornication.”

This is a sound mursal report.

Al-Bayhaqī (3) transmitted it in like manner from al-Ḥākim, from al-Aṣamm, from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣaghānī (4), from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Bukayr, from ʿAbd al-Ghaffār ibn al-Qāsim, from Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad, from his father, who said that the Messenger of God ﷺ declared:

“God brought me forth from lawful marriage; He did not bring me forth from fornication.”

Ibn ʿAdī (5) narrated it with a continuous chain, saying: Aḥmad ibn Ḥafṣ told us; Muḥammad ibn Abī ʿUmar al-ʿAdanī al-Makkī (6) told us; Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn said: I bear witness that my father related to me from his father, from his grandfather, from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib that the Prophet ﷺ said:

“I issued from lawful wedlock, never from illicit union, from the time of Adam until my father and mother bore me; none of the fornication of the Age of Ignorance ever touched me.”

This chain is unusual and scarcely authentic (7).

Hushaym said: al-Madīnī related to us, from Abū al-Ḥuwayrith, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said that the Messenger of God ﷺ declared:

“None of the marriages of the Age of Ignorance produced me; I was produced only from a marriage like the marriages practiced in Islam.”