I say: This investigation makes clear that most of the narrators affirm an intermediary between Ibn Abī Fudayk and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Muṭṭalib. Therefore, Abū Ḥātim’s statement concerning the first version, “It is more plausible,” is unacceptable. Al-Ḥāfiẓ indicated its refutation in al-Tahdhīb, saying: “An intermediary has been omitted between Ibn Abī Fudayk and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.”

The other point of discrepancy is whether the hadith is traced back to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, through ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥanṭab or through his father, Ḥanṭab. In all the reports narrated from him, Ibn Abī Fudayk stated that it was ʿAbd Allāh, whereas Jaʿfar ibn Musāfir narrated from him, from al-Mughīrah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, that it was Ḥanṭab, as mentioned above in al-Ḥāfiẓ’s remarks. There is no doubt in my view that the first is more preponderant, since it is the narration of the majority. Jaʿfar ibn Musāfir’s contradiction is therefore of no consequence, especially since some had criticized the soundness of his memory, as indicated by al-Ḥāfiẓ’s statement in al-Taqrīb: “Truthful, though he sometimes erred.”

He also differed from them at another point in the chain, making al-Mughīrah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Abī Fudayk’s shaykh. None of them mentioned this, but this discrepancy is of little consequence, for this al-Mughīrah may have been one of those shaykhs to whom Duḥaym alluded in his narration from Ibn Abī Fudayk.

I then found corroboration for Jaʿfar in Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr’s al-Istīʿāb (1/401, al-Nahḍah edition), where he said: “This al-Mughīrah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is al-Ḥizāmī, who is weak; he is not the al-Makhzūmī jurist known for his legal opinions, who is trustworthy.”

If it is more likely that the hadith is narrated on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥanṭab, was he a Companion or not? They differed over this. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr definitively affirmed his Companionship, as is implied by his statement in al-Ḥākim’s narration.