- “On the Day of Resurrection, the hornless sheep will be given redress against the horned sheep.”
ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad narrated it in Zawaʾid al-Musnad (1/72): ʿAbbas ibn Muhammad and Abu Yahya al-Bazzar narrated to me from Hajjaj ibn Nusayr, who said: Shuʿbah narrated to us, from al-ʿAwwam ibn Murajim of Banu Qays ibn Thaʿlabah, from Abu ʿUthman al-Nahdi, from ʿUthman, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said it.
I say: This is a weak chain of transmission because of this Hajjaj. Al-Hafiz said: “He was weak and susceptible to prompting.”
I say: He erred in the chain of transmission of this hadith and in attributing it to the Prophet. Ibn Abi Hatim said in al-ʿIlal (2/226–227): “Abu Zurʿah said: ‘This is an error. Rather, it is Shuʿbah, from al-ʿAwwam ibn Murajim, from Abu al-Salil, who said: Salman said ...’ It is attributed to the Companion.”
Concerning the hadith, he said in al-Majmaʿ (10/352): “It was narrated by al-Tabarani in al-Kabir, al-Bazzar, and ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad. Its chain includes Hajjaj ibn Nusayr, who has been deemed trustworthy despite his weakness. The rest of al-Bazzar’s narrators are narrators of the Sahih, apart from al-ʿAwwam ibn Murajim, who is trustworthy.”
I say: I have not found it in the section on ʿUthman in al-Tabarani’s al-Kabir, and Allah knows best. Moreover, I do not know why he singled out al-Bazzar in saying, “The rest of its narrators are narrators of the Sahih,” when one of ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad’s two chains is likewise so. For Abu Yahya al-Bazzar—whose name was Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Rahim, known as al-Saʿiqah—was among al-Bukhari’s narrators. The hadith is authentic, since it has been authentically reported from Abu Hurayrah as a statement of the Prophet through two routes from him:
The first: from al-ʿAlaʾ ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman, from his father, from him, with the wording: