68 – “Last night verses were revealed to me—woe to anyone who recites them yet fails to contemplate them: inna fī khalqi as-samāwāti wa-l-arḍ (Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth…)”

It was narrated by Abū Shaykh Ibn Ḥibbān in Akhlāq al-Nabī ﷺ (200–201) and by Ibn Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ (523 – al-Mawārid) through the chain of Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyā ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Suwayd al-Nakhaʿī, who said: ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī Sulaymān informed us, from ʿAṭāʾ, who said:

“I, together with ʿUbayd ibn ʿUmayr, visited ʿĀʾishah (Allah be pleased with her). ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmayr said, ‘Tell us the most astonishing thing you witnessed from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).’ She wept and replied:

‘One night he rose and said, “O ʿĀʾishah, allow me to worship my Lord.” I answered, “By Allah, I love your nearness and I love what pleases you.” She continued: He rose, performed ablution, and began to pray. He wept until his lap was wet, then he kept weeping until the ground beneath him was wet. Bilāl came to call for the prayer, and when he saw him weeping he said, “Messenger of Allah, are you weeping when Allah has forgiven for you whatever preceded of your sin and whatever will follow?” He replied, “Shall I not be a grateful servant? Last night there was revealed…”’—and she related the remainder of the report.”

I say: This isnād is good; all its narrators are trustworthy except Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyā. Ibn Abī Ḥātim said (4/2/145): “I asked my father about him; he replied, ‘There is nothing objectionable in him—his hadith is acceptable.’”

Al-Mundhirī, in al-Targhīb (2/220), ascribed the hadith to Ibn Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ.

There is another route for the narration from ʿAṭāʾ, also recorded by Abū Shaykh (190–191). Its transmitters are likewise reliable, except Abū Janāb al-Kalbī—his name is Yaḥyā ibn Abī Ḥiyyah—about whom al-Ḥāfiẓ said