(1) He is Abu Ubayda ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿud, known by his kunya, and it is most widely held that he had no other name. Some say his given name was ʿAmir. He was a reliable Kufan scholar, one of the leading figures of the third generation, and he died in 80 AH. At-Taqrib, 2:448. (2) This hadith is mursal (interrupted), since Abu Ubayda did not hear it from his father. Ibn Hajar records this in at-Tahdhib, 5:75. Al-Lalaqa‘i transmitted it in Sharh Usool ʿAqidah Ahl as-Sunnah (no. 655) and also as mawquf (stopped) on ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿud (no. 657) in the edition by Ahmad Saʿd Hamdan (it will reappear here as no. 61). Al-Darimi included it in al-Radd ʿala al-Jahmiyyah, p. 20; al-Hakim in al-Mustadrak 2:248 (declaring it sahih isnad, an authentic chain); and al-Dhahabi in al-ʿUluw, p. 20, noting that ʿAmr ibn Zurayq narrated it from Abu Ishaq as marfuʿ (attributed to the Prophet), though the mawquf form is more reliable, despite the interruption in Abu Ubayda’s report from his father. (3) In manuscript H, the word al-ʿalim (the scholar) is added. (4) The reading al-Bazzaz appears only in the original manuscript. (5) In other copies it reads only Abu Talib al-Yusufi. (6) In H it reads “qāla haddathanī abī”; in M “thanni abī” (abbreviated and without “qāla”); in R “haddathanī abī” without “qāla.”