except that he said, “Yes,” in place of “the Shin.” Hishām ibn Saʿd combined both wordings in al-Ḥākim’s version, as you have seen. It is also found in Muslim, though he did not give its wording, as mentioned above.

In sum, the hadith is authentic and widely transmitted from Zayd ibn Aslam, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār, from Abū Saʿīd. Al-Kawtharī sought to impugn it—as was his habit with hadiths concerning the divine attributes—saying in his commentary on al-Asmāʾ (p. 345): “Al-Bukhārī’s chain contains Ibn Bukayr and Ibn Abī Hilāl, while Muslim’s chain contains Suwayd ibn Saʿīd.”

I say: If you take an impartial look at the preceding documentation, you will realize how far this statement of al-Kawtharī is from impartial scholarly criticism. Ibn Bukayr was not alone in narrating it from al-Layth; rather, Ādam corroborated him in al-Bukhārī, as you saw in our documentation and in al-Bayhaqī’s statement—which al-Kawtharī ignored for a purpose of his own. He was also corroborated by ʿĪsā ibn Ḥammād in Muslim. Moreover, although some scholars criticized Ibn Bukayr with regard to his retention, this was not concerning his narrations from al-Layth. Ibn ʿAdī said: “He was al-Layth ibn Saʿd’s neighbor, and he was the most reliable of people in narrating from him.”

As for Suwayd ibn Saʿīd, although there was some weakness in his retention, this does not harm him here, since he is corroborated through other routes from Zayd, as you have heard and seen. The same may be said of Saʿīd ibn Abī Hilāl: he was corroborated by Ḥafṣ ibn Maysarah, Hishām ibn Saʿd, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Isḥāq. The agreement of these three upon the hadith places it beyond criticism in the view of anyone fair-minded.

Yes, there is a variation in one word of it: the first said, “His Shin,” whereas the others said, “a Shin.” I am more inclined toward the narration of the latter. For this reason, al-Ḥāfiẓ said in al-Fatḥ (8/539), after citing it with the first wording: “Al-Ismāʿīlī likewise transmitted it in that form. He then said: The expression ‘His Shin’ is objectionable. He then transmitted it through Ḥafṣ ibn Maysarah, from Zayd ibn Aslam, with the wording: ‘He uncovers a Shin.’ Al-Ismāʿīlī said: This is more authentic, since in general it conforms to the wording of the Quran; one should not imagine that Allah has bodily members”