“from ʿĀʾishah—or from Ibn ʿUmar”; Sharik was uncertain, and Sharik’s memory is unreliable.
(8) Umm Ḥabībah, the Prophet’s wife:
Al-Ṭabarānī transmits it in al-Kabīr, as does Abū Yaʿlā, and the men in their chain are the same men found in the Ṣaḥīḥ.
(9) Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh:
Al-Bazzār relates it. The chain contains al-Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah, about whom the critics differ, as al-Haythamī notes in al-Majmaʿ.
Know that the khumrah (a small woven mat just large enough for one’s face in prostration)—pronounced with ḍamma on the khāʾ and sukūn on the mīm—is a piece of rush matting, plaited palm-leaf, or similar plant fiber of precisely that size; nothing larger is called a khumrah. It received the name because its strands “cover” (takhmur) one another. So states Ibn al-Athīr in al-Nihāyah. In Fatḥ al-Bārī it is recorded:
“Al-Khaṭṭābī said: It is the prayer-rug upon which a worshipper prostrates.” He then cited the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās concerning the mouse that dragged a burning wick until it dropped it onto the khumrah on which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was sitting. This clearly shows that the term khumrah can also be applied to something larger than the space of the face.
I say: This ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās is reported by al-Bukhārī in al-Adab al-Mufrad, by Abū Dāwūd, and by al-Ḥākim through the route of ʿAmr ibn Ṭalḥah, who said: “Asbāṭ narrated to us, from Simāk ibn Ḥarb, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās,” and its continuation reads: