He said: “A good hadith.”

I say: This Yahya is weak in hadith, as stated in al-Taqrib; see al-Irwa’ (1593).

3 — As for the hadith of Anas, Saʿid ibn Abi ʿArubah narrates it from Qatadah, from him: “The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was on Hira with Abu Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthman ...” He then related the hadith, adding: “and two martyrs.”

Al-Khatib recorded it in al-Tarikh (5/365) through the route of Muhammad ibn Yunus: Quraysh ibn Anas narrated to us; Saʿid ibn Abi ʿArubah narrated to us.

This Ibn Yunus is al-Kudaymi, who is accused [of fabrication], but he was not alone in narrating it, as will follow. Al-Bukhari (7/30), al-Tirmidhi (4/318), who authenticated it, and Ahmad (3/112) also recorded it through the route of Yahya from Saʿid, from Anas. However, he said “Uhud” in place of “Hira.” Al-Hafiz said in his commentary:

“It occurs as ‘Hira’ in a narration of Muslim and Abu Yaʿla through another route from Saʿid, but the first is more sound. Were it not for the shared source, I would have considered it possible that the incident occurred more than once.”

It then became clear to me that the discrepancy originated with Saʿid, for I found it in Musnad al-Harith ibn Abi Usamah through Ruh ibn ʿUbadah, from Saʿid, where it was said, “Uhud or Hira,” with uncertainty.

I have two observations concerning this. First: I have not found this hadith, as narrated by Anas, in Muslim at all; nor did al-Suyuti attribute it to Muslim in Ziyadat al-Jamiʿ al-Saghir (6/2).

Second: There is no doubt that the incident occurred more than once, on account of the multiple chains indicating this. Yet this does not necessarily mean that Anas narrated all of it. Since there is disagreement over Ibn Abi ʿArubah in this report, that is because he became confused in his later years, as stated in al-Taqrib. It is therefore necessary to give preference to one of the two wordings narrated from him. We examined the reports and found that al-Bukhari had