alone, and no one other than al-Zuhrī narrated from him.” This may be answered in several ways:

First: Abū Hātim al-Rāzī said of him, “He transmits sound hadith; his narrations are acceptable.” Abū Hātim’s endorsement carries the greatest weight.

[It is related that Abū Hātim al-Bustī said: “Al-Zuhrī, Sa‘īd ibn Abī Hilāl, and his grandson Amr ibn Muslim ibn Umārah ibn Ukaymah ibn Umar narrated from him.”] (*)

Second: Ibn Ukaymah’s hadith contains only what is also found in the hadith of Ubādah upon which al-Bayhaqī and others relied: that they recited behind the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and that he said:

“Why is someone competing with me in reciting the Quran?”

Third: Ibn Ukaymah’s hadith was narrated by the four compilers of the Sunan. If the soundness of this hadith’s text is conceded, and the hadith he cited as evidence and that cited by his opponents agree on this account, then what they agree upon is to be acted upon by agreement. The additional wording in his hadith, however, was transmitted uniquely through that particular chain. Only some of the compilers of the Sunan narrated it, and the leading scholars criticized it. Within the core report whose transmission is agreed upon, the disputed addition was more deserving of criticism.

As for the statement, “The people stopped,” if this is al-Zuhrī’s wording, it would be supplementary, for al-Zuhrī was the most knowledgeable of the Successors of his time concerning the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah