more fitting for himself. He then sought to impugn the hadith of descent on grounds that constitute neither a defect nor a discrepancy: the narrator’s wording, ‘He descends,’ and ‘He says, when half the night has passed,’ while some narrators said, ‘a third of the night and half the night.’

Ibn Mandah said: ‘This is not a discrepancy; rather, it is ignorance.’ Alongside these, he cited the hadith transmitted by Muhammad ibn Yazīd ibn Sinān, from his father, from Zayd ibn Abī Anīsah, from Tāriq, from Sa‘īd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ‘Abbās, from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who said:

‘He commands a caller to call out every night.’

This is a fabricated hadith that accords with his position. Out of uncertainty and ignorance, he claimed that Yahyā ibn Sa‘īd al-Qattān, Ibn Mahdī, al-Bukhārī and Muslim had included in their books the likes of these weak narrators whose reports are rejected.

He repeated the hadith of Abū Hishām al-Rifā‘ī from Hafs. Muhādir and several others narrated it with the wording:

‘Allah descends every night.’

Likewise, the report of Tāriq, which he narrated from ‘Ubayd Allāh ibn ‘Umar, from Zayd ibn Abī Anīsah, from Tāriq, from Sa‘īd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ‘Abbās, contains the words:

‘Allah descends every night.’

As for the hadith of al-Hasan from ‘Uthmān ibn Abī al-‘Ās, we have already discussed it above. Nothing concerning these hadiths or their narrators is sound.

He said: ‘Had he remained silent about knowledge of hadith, it would have been more becoming and better for him. Allah has deprived him of that knowledge and firmly entrenched in his heart the rejection of authentic reports and reliance upon his own unsound reasoning.’”