“My father narrated from him and heard from him four hadiths during the days of ʿUbayd Allah ibn Mūsā.” He mentioned neither criticism nor accreditation concerning him. As for al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥannāṭ, I have found no biographical notice for him. Al-Haythamī, however, said (9/276): “Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it, and its chain is good.” Indeed, the hadith is good by virtue of supporting evidence. The first statement requires no corroborating report, as is evident; the middle statement has been narrated from al-Muṭṭalib ibn Rabīʿah, ʿAlī ibn Abū Ṭālib, and his son al-Ḥasan, through weak chains, which I have cited in the other book (1944–1945). As for the final statement, Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr narrated it in his Sunan, as cited in al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr, from the hadith of ʿAbd Allah al-Warrāq as a mursal report.

I then found another corroborating report for it. Ibn Wahb said in al-Jāmiʿ (p. 14): Yūnus ibn Yazīd informed me, from Ibn Shihāb, who said: It has reached us—and Allah knows best—that the Messenger of Allah said: “A paternal uncle is a father when there is no father in his place, and a maternal aunt is a mother when there is no mother in her place.”

This chain is mursal, or has a double break, though its narrators are reliable.

1042 — “When one of your servants brings his food, let him seat him with him, or give him some of it, for he was the one who attended to its heat and smoke.”

Ibn Mājah (2/308) and Aḥmad (1/388 and 446) transmitted it by way of Ibrāhīm al-Hajarī, from Abū al-Aḥwaṣ, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿūd, attributed to the Prophet. This is a good chain: all its narrators are reliable and among Muslim’s narrators, apart from Ibrāhīm al-Hajarī—who is Ibn Muslim. In al-Taqrīb, it states: “He is weak in hadith and would attribute Companion reports to the Prophet.”

I say: This report is unquestionably attributed to the Prophet, and it has a corroborating report: “When one of your servants brings his food, having spared you its heat and labour, then if he does not seat him with him to eat, let him give him a portion of his food.”

1043 — “When one of your servants brings his food, having spared you its heat and labour, then if he does not seat him with him to eat, let him give him a portion of his food.”

Aḥmad (2/406 and 464) transmitted it from Ḥammād ibn Salamah, who reported to us from ʿAmmār ibn Abū ʿAmmār.