(38–39) Ibn Lahīʿah informed me, from al-Walīd ibn Abī al-Walīd, from al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from his father, that he heard Ḥudhayfah ibn al-Yamān mention that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ met him and said: “O Ḥudhayfah, give me your hand.” He took hold of his hand once, then a second time, then a third, and said: “What is preventing you?” He replied: “I am in a state of major ritual impurity.” He then related the rest of the hadith.

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy and are narrators used by Muslim, except that Muslim only narrated from Ibn Lahīʿah—whose name was ʿAbd Allāh—in conjunction with another narrator. His hadith are sound when transmitted from him by the ʿAbādilah, the prominent transmitters named ʿAbd Allāh, as established in his biographical entry. Al-Walīd ibn Abī al-Walīd was Abū ʿUthmān al-Madanī, the client of Ibn ʿUmar; it is also said that he was a client of the household of ʿUthmān. Ibn Abī Ḥātim said (4/2/20): “Al-Bukhārī treated him as two separate names. My father said: ‘They are one and the same.’ Abū Zurʿah was asked about him and replied: ‘Trustworthy.’”

I say: This declaration of his trustworthiness was overlooked by al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar. He did not mention it in this al-Walīd’s entry in al-Tahdhīb, nor did he cite any declaration of his trustworthiness other than that of Ibn Ḥibbān, who included him in al-Thiqāt (1/246). Ibn Ḥibbān is known to be lenient in declaring narrators trustworthy, and for this reason critical scholars do not rely on his judgments. Al-Ḥāfiẓ followed this approach in al-Taqrīb, describing him as: “Soft in hadith.” I think that, had he come across Abū Zurʿah’s declaration that he was trustworthy, he would have deemed him trustworthy rather than classing him as weak. Allah knows best.

Ibn Shāhīn also transmitted the hadith in al-Targhīb (folio 310/2), from al-Walīd ibn Abī al-Walīd al-Madanī, from Yaʿqūb al-Ḥaraqī, from Ḥudhayfah, with the same wording. This is how it appears in my draft; it does not identify the narrator from al-Walīd, whether he was trustworthy or not. Although the presumption is that his omission, or the failure to mention him, was customary because he was trustworthy, the original is not presently with me: it is in Medina, while I am writing this in Damascus (3/4/1387 AH). Therefore, I cannot compare this chain with Ibn Wahb’s chain or determine which of the two is preferable.

The hadith has another chain in al-Jāmiʿ, but it is very weak. He said (27): “Ibn … informed me”