Then al-Bukhārī also transmitted the report through the line of Mālik (1), just as he had transmitted it through the line of Sufyān ibn ʿUyayna. Mālik related this ḥadīth from al-Zuhrī exactly as Ibn ʿUyayna did, with the same chain of transmission and the same wording.

As for Maʿmar, he wavered in both its chain and its wording: on one occasion he narrated it from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, from Abū Hurayra, adding, “If the butter is solid, toss it (the mouse) out together with what is around it; but if it is liquid, do not go near it.” On another occasion it is reported from him with the phrase, “and if it is liquid, use it to fuel your lamps.” Thus the reports that run through Maʿmar are mutually inconsistent.

A group of scholars nonetheless assumed that Maʿmar’s version was soundly preserved and acted on it; among those who upheld it was Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhli in the material he compiled from al-Zuhrī’s narrations. Al-Bukhārī, al-Tirmidhī, and others, however, critiqued Maʿmar’s report, demonstrated its error, and they are correct.

Al-Bukhārī cites here that Ibn ʿUyayna said, “I heard it from al-Zuhrī many times; he never relates it except from ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd Allah, and the only wording is: ‘Remove it and whatever is around it, then eat (the remainder).’” Mālik and others narrate it in the same fashion. Al-Bukhārī also records, by way of Yūnus, that al-Zuhrī was asked about an animal that dies in clarified butter, whether the butter is solid or liquid, and he issued the ruling that the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—ordered, when a mouse died in clarified butter, that whatever was near it be discarded.

This, then, is al-Zuhrī’s legal verdict concerning both solid and liquid clarified butter. How, therefore, could it be claimed that he reported, on the strength of this very ḥadīth, that the two forms share the same ruling, and that he merely paraphrased it by saying, “He commanded that it be thrown away along with whatever was near it”?

Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad relates in his Masāʾil from Aḥmad: Ismāʿīl narrated to us; ʿUmārah ibn Abī Ḥafṣah narrated to us, from ʿIkrimah, that Ibn ʿAbbās was asked about a mouse that died in clarified butter. He replied, “Remove the mouse and whatever surrounds it.” I said, “My master, its traces have reached all of the butter.” He retorted, “Bite your father’s nose! Its traces affected the butter while it was alive; it only died where it was found.”

He (Ṣāliḥ) then said: My father narrated to us; Wakīʿ narrated to us, from al-Naḍr ibn ʿArabī, from ʿIkrimah, who said: A man came to Ibn ʿAbbās and asked him about a jar containing oil in which a puppy had fallen. Ibn ʿAbbās said, “Remove it and whatever is around it, discard that, and eat (the remainder).” A similar report is related from Ibn Masʿūd—and this represents one of the two narrations from Aḥmad, and one of the two narrations from