- As for the hadith of Muʿāwiyah, Muṣʿab ibn ʿAbd Allāh narrates it: “ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr—or someone else—told me: ‘ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān fell ill, and visitors would come in to see him and then leave, while Marwān would remain with him for a long time. Ramlah bint Muʿāwiyah found this objectionable. … When ʿAmr left for the pilgrimage, Ramlah went to her father and reached him in Syria, informing him. He said: “Marwān, bear witness that I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say”—and he then cited it.’”
It was recorded by Ibn ʿAsākir (13/294/1).
I say: This Muṣʿab was truthful and learned in genealogy. If he accurately retained his shaykh’s name, and that he was ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad …, then the chain of transmission is extremely weak, because ʿAbd Allāh was abandoned in hadith, as Abū Ḥātim stated. However, he did not definitively identify him as that person; rather, he wavered as to whether it was he or someone else.
In sum, the primary basis for establishing the hadith’s authenticity is the first route, while the second and third are good corroborating reports for it. And Allah knows best.
- “Usāmah was the most beloved of people—apart from Fāṭimah, and no one else.”
It was narrated by al-Ḥākim (3/596), Aḥmad (2/96), Abū Umayyah al-Ṭarsūsī in Musnad Ibn ʿUmar (210/1), al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (1/21/1), and Ibn ʿAsākir (2/343/1), through several routes from Ḥammād ibn Salamah, from Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, from Sālim, from Ibn ʿUmar, attributed to the Prophet. Al-Ḥākim does not include the stated exception, and he said: