“I came to Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and found him cauterizing a boy. I said, ‘Are you cauterizing him?’ He replied, ‘Yes; it is the remedy of the Arabs.’” ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd then related it as a hadith attributed to the Prophet.

Its narrators are trustworthy, apart from ʿAlī ibn ʿĀṣim, who is truthful but makes errors, as stated in al-Taqrīb. However, Sufyān corroborated him from ʿAṭāʾ, through the same chain and with similar wording, in al-Mustadrak (4/399). Al-Ḥākim declared it authentic, and al-Dhahabī concurred.

It has another chain with the wording: “Indeed, Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has not sent down any disease without sending down a cure for it, except old age. So take cow’s milk, for cows graze on every kind of tree.” It was recorded by al-Ḥākim (4/197) and al-Ṭayālisī (no. 368), through al-Masʿūdī, from Qays ibn Muslim, from Ṭāriq ibn Shihāb, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, attributed to the Prophet. Al-Masʿūdī, however, had become confused.

Yet it has another chain with the wording: “Allah has not sent down any disease without sending down a remedy for it. So take cow’s milk, for cows graze on every kind of tree.” Al-Nasāʾī recorded it in al-Walīmah (2/64/2), as did Ibn Ḥibbān (1398) and Ibn ʿAsākir (8/242/2), from Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf, from Sufyān, from Qays ibn Muslim, from Ṭāriq ibn Shihāb, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, attributed to the Prophet.

I say: This is an authentic chain; all its narrators are trustworthy and are narrators of the two Ṣaḥīḥs. Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf is al-Firyābī, who is trustworthy. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī, however, differed from him, narrating it from Sufyān through the same chain but rendering it mursal, omitting Ibn Masʿūd. Aḥmad (4/315) and al-Nasāʾī also recorded it. Al-Nasāʾī then recorded it through al-Rabīʿ ibn Lūṭ, from Qays ibn Muslim, through the same chain, with wording like al-Firyābī’s narration, except that he attributed it only to Ibn Masʿūd. Ibn Lūṭ is trustworthy, as stated in