“I have not come across it in the section of ʿĀʾishah’s Musnad within the Musnad of Aḥmad.” Such were his words. Yet the report is actually found in the Musnad just as al-Ḥusaynī affirmed, and we have already indicated its exact page. Al-Ḥāfiẓ likewise alluded to the ḥadith in Fatḥ al-Bārī and passed over it in silence, as will be quoted from him shortly.
As for the corroborating narrations, they are three:
- From Ḥafṣah bint ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with her) who said: “One day the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was sitting, having placed his garment between his thighs. Abu Bakr came and asked permission to enter, and he granted it …” – and she continued with the rest of the report.
Aḥmad, al-Ṭaḥāwī in both Sharḥ Maʿānī al-Āthār and Mushkil al-Āthār, and al-Bayhaqī all recorded it through the route of Ibn Jurayj, who said: “Abū Khālid informed me, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Saʿīd al-Madīnī, who said: Ḥafṣah related it to me.”
Aḥmad and al-Bayhaqī also transmitted it through the route of Shaybān, from Abū Yaʿfūr, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Saʿīd al-Muzanī with the same contents.
Al-Bukhārī likewise cited it in al-Tārīkh through both chains from this same ʿAbd Allāh.
Its transmitters are trustworthy except for ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Saʿīd; al-Ḥusaynī remarked, “It is not known who he is.”
Al-Ḥāfiẓ said in al-Taʿjīl, after citing the ḥadith through both of its routes: “From this it is clear that ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Saʿīd has two transmitters, he has not been declared unreliable, and nothing has been reported against him …”