and its chain of transmission is authentic. Its narrators are trustworthy transmitters of Muslim, apart from Jabalah ibn ʿAtiyyah, who is trustworthy, as stated in al-Taqrib. The wording of Ahmad and Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr is: “When Allah intends good for a servant …” Ahmad also has two other routes in his Musnad (4/96/99) from Muʿawiyah. The narrators of the first are trustworthy transmitters of Muslim, apart from Jarad, a man from Banu Tamim. He is Jarad ibn Mujalid al-Dabbi; Abu Hatim said, “There is nothing objectionable about him,” and Ibn Hibban included him in al-Thiqat. Thus, the chain is good. Al-Tahawi also recorded it through this route (2/279). The other route has an authentic chain of transmission according to the criteria of Muslim. (1) It has also been narrated with additional wording, which will come later.

As for the report of Ibn Ziyad mentioned above, its wording is: “Whomever Allah intends good for, He grants him understanding of the religion. I am only a distributor, while Allah gives.” Al-Tahawi recorded it in Mushkil al-Athar (2/280): Abu Umayyah narrated to us; Surayj ibn al-Nuʿman al-Jawhari narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Wahid ibn Ziyad narrated to us, from Maʿmar, from al-Zuhri, from Saʿid ibn al-Musayyib, from Abu Hurayrah, attributed to the Prophet with this wording. This is a good chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy transmitters of al-Bukhari, apart from Abu Umayyah—whose name was Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muslim al-Khuzaʿi al-Baghdadi—who was truthful but made mistakes, as stated in al-Taqrib.

Muslim also recorded it (3/95) through the route of Yunus, from Ibn Shihab, who said: Humayd ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn ʿAwf told me, “I heard Muʿawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, while delivering a sermon, say: ‘I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say’”—then he mentioned it, except that he said, “and Allah gives.” There is therefore concern that the hadith was in fact from al-Zuhri, from Humayd, from Muʿawiyah, but that Abu Umayyah rendered it as from al-Zuhri, from Saʿid, from Abu Hurayrah. This is supported by the fact that a number of trustworthy narrators reported it from both ʿAbd al-Wahid ibn Ziyad and ʿAbd al-Aʿla ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿla, each from al-Zuhri, from Saʿid, with the same wording, but without the phrase, “I am only …,” and so forth. And Allah knows best.