ʿAbdullāh the Ḥāfiẓ (1) narrated to us; Abū Ḥāmid ibn Ḥablah conveyed it; Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq reported; he said: al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ṣāliḥ related to us; he said: ʿAmr ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAnqazī (2) related; he said: ʿĪsā ibn Ṭahmān related; he said: I heard Anas ibn Mālik ﵁ say:
Zaynab used to boast over the other wives of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, declaring, “Allah married me off from the heaven, and at my wedding He provided bread and meat.” In another wording she would say, “Your families gave you in marriage, whereas Allah married me from above the seven heavens.” (3)
67 – ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad informed us; Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī (4) informed us; Abū al-Qāsim Hibatullāh ibn al-Ḥasan conveyed it; ʿUbaydullāh ibn Muḥammad (5) narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAlī reported; Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar reported; Abū Kinānah Muḥammad ibn Ashras al-Anṣārī related; Abū ʿUmayr al-Ḥanafī, from Qurrah ibn Khālid, from al-Ḥasan, from his mother, from Umm Salamah ﵂, concerning the verse,
“The Most Compassionate rose over the Throne” (Qur’an 20:5):
She said, “The ‘how’ is beyond comprehension, the rising itself is not unknown; affirming it is faith, and denying it is disbelief.” (6)
(1) In other manuscripts: “Abu Nu‘aym” only.
(2) al-‘Anqazi (pronounced with a fatḥa on the ‘ayn, sukun on the nūn, fatḥa on the qāf, and ending in zayn) is a nisba derived from al-na‘qaz, a type of plant that he cultivated or sold; hence the attribution. See: al-Lubāb, 2:362.
(3) This is reported by al-Bukhari in the Book of Monotheism, chapter “His Throne Was on the Water,” hadith nos. 7420 and 7421, vol. 2, pp. 403–404; by al-Tirmidhi in the Book of Interpretation, hadith no. 3213, vol. 5, pp. 354–355; by Abu Nu‘aym in al-Ḥilya, 2:52; by Ibn Sa‘d in al-Ṭabaqāt, vol. 8, pp. 103, 106; and by al-Dhahabī in al-‘Ulū, p. 20.
(4) In other manuscripts: “Anba’ al-Turaythīthī.”
(5) “ʿUbayd Allah ibn Muḥammad” is omitted in al-Dhahabī’s isnād.
(6) This view is attributed to a group including Malik and Rabiʿa al-Ra’y, as will be shown. It was narrated from Umm Salama by al-Lalika’ī in al-Sunnah (no. 663), 2:397, and is cited by Ibn Ḥajar in al-Fatḥ, 13:406; by Shaykh al-Islām in his Fatāwā, 5:365, where, after quoting Malik’s position on al-istiwa’ (“establishing”), he states: “This report from Umm Salama has been transmitted both mursal (with an incomplete chain) and marfūʿ (ascribed to the Prophet), but its isnād is not reliable.” It is also recorded by al-Ṣābūnī in ʿAqīdat al-Salaf wa-Aṣḥāb al-Ḥadīth, within Majmūʿat al-Rasā’il al-Munīra, 1:110.