I say: This chain of transmission consists of trustworthy narrators, all of whom are narrators of the two Ṣaḥīḥs; thus, it is authentic were it not for Ibn Jurayj’s use of the ambiguous ‘an formula, for he practised tadlīs. The uncertainty over which Successor he named does not detract from it, since they are all trustworthy. Mālik corroborated him and did not express uncertainty in his narration from him, saying: “The right of pre-emption applies to what has not been divided. Once the boundaries have been established and the roads assigned, there is no right of pre-emption.” Al-Ṭaḥāwī recorded it in Sharḥ al-Maʿānī (2/265–266), as did Ibn Ḥibbān (1152) and al-Bayhaqī, through several routes from Mālik with this chain.

This is an authentic chain of transmission. However, al-Ṭaḥāwī deemed it defective on the grounds that the most reliable of Mālik’s students narrated it only as a mursal report, without mentioning Abū Hurayrah. He then cited it through Ibn Wahb and others, from Mālik, from Ibn Shihāb, from Ibn al-Musayyib and Abū Salamah, with similar wording. Yaḥyā likewise narrated it from Mālik in al-Muwaṭṭaʾ (2/192).

The apparent conclusion—and Allah knows best—is that this variation came from al-Zuhrī himself: at times he narrated it as mursal, and at other times with a connected chain. This does not impair the hadith’s authenticity in any way, since the narrator is trustworthy. At times, he may be more attentive and transmit it with a connected chain, while at other times he may be less attentive and narrate it as mursal; and the connected version constitutes an addition which must be accepted. This is especially so since the hadith appears in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and elsewhere through Maʿmar, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah, from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allah, attributed to the Prophet, with similar wording.

1386 — “When one of you prays facing a sutrah (prayer barrier), let him draw near to it, so that Satan may not pass between him and it.”

Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (1/79/2) through Sulaymān ibn Ayyūb al-Ṣarīfīnī, who said: Bishr ibn al-Sarī narrated to us from Dāwūd ibn Qays al-Farrāʾ, from Nāfiʿ ibn Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim, from his father, that the Messenger of Allah said the foregoing.

I say: This chain of transmission consists of trustworthy narrators, apart from this Sulaymān ibn Ayyūb. They overlooked him and gave no biographical notice of him, except perhaps al-Samʿānī in al-Ansāb, who mentioned him under this nisbah, al-Ṣarīfīnī, and said: