ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Isḥāq also corroborated the report from Ibn Shihāb. Al-Nasāʾī and al-Ṭabarī recorded his version, as cited in Fatḥ al-Bārī. Maʿmar, however, differed and narrated it “from al-Zuhri, from Qabīḍah ibn Dhuʾayb, from Zayd ibn Thābit,” a wording collected by Aḥmad. It therefore appears that al-Zuhri had two distinct chains for this report—Allah knows best.

The ḥadith has yet another route: Abū Dāwūd, al-Ṭaḥāwī, and al-Ḥākim—who declared it sound, a judgment endorsed by al-Dhahabī and Aḥmad—transmitted it through ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Zinād, from his father, from Khārijah ibn Zayd, from Zayd ibn Thābit.

Al-Bukhārī cites this ḥadith in the chapter “What Is Mentioned Concerning the Thigh,” just as he cites the previously noted report of Anas, thereby indicating that the thigh is not ʿawrah. For this reason Shaykh Muḥammad Anwar al-Kashmīrī wrote in Fayd al-Bārī: “What is apparent from the author’s method—may Allah have mercy on him—is that he inclined toward the school of Mālik and treated the Ḥanafī position as a matter of precaution.”

As for the report, “The thigh is ʿawrah,” it is weak. Al-Bukhārī hinted at its weakness in his Ṣaḥīḥ, saying, “It is related from Ibn ʿAbbās, Jarhad, and Muḥammad ibn Jaḥsh from the Prophet ﷺ: ‘The thigh is ʿawrah.’”

At this point we must examine in detail the defects of this ḥadith so that the reader may be fully assured.