- As for the hadith of Buraydah, Abū Ḥanīfah narrates it in his Musnad (p. 160, with al-Qārī’s commentary), from ʿAlqamah ibn Marthad, from Sulaymān ibn Buraydah, from his father, tracing it back to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, with the same wording. Aḥmad recorded it through Abū Ḥanīfah (5/357), but deliberately did not name him, as his son ʿAbd Allāh stated. He said: “This is how my father related it: he deliberately did not name him. Someone else narrated it to us and named him”—meaning Abū Ḥanīfah. Al-Haythamī alluded to this when he said in al-Majmaʿ (1/166): “It contains a weak narrator, and despite his weakness, he was not named.”
I say: Sulaymān al-Shādhakūnī also narrated it to us, saying: Ibn Yamān narrated to us from Sufyān, from ʿAlqamah, with the same report, adding: “Allah loves relieving the distressed.” It was recorded by Tammām in al-Fawāʾid (227/2), Ibn ʿAdī in al-Kāmil (162/2), and Abū Nuʿaym in Akhbār Iṣfahān (1/333–334). Ibn ʿAdī said: “I know it only through al-Shādhakūnī. In my view, he was a profligate hadith scholar, one who stole hadith.”
I say: Ibn Maʿīn and others declared him a liar, and more than one scholar accused him of fabricating hadith. Strangely, Abū Nuʿaym mentioned neither narrator criticism nor accreditation in his biographical notice; it seems that his true state escaped him. Moreover, Shaykh al-Bannā was far off the mark in his commentary on al-Fatḥ al-Rabbānī (19/72). After al-Haythamī’s statement cited above, he said: “I say: Abū Ḥanīfah, who is named in the chain, is Abū Ḥanīfah al-Kūfī, the father of ʿAbd al-Akram, whom al-Ḥāfiẓ described in al-Taqrīb as unknown.” End quote.
I say: This is a twofold error:
First: he is not that man; rather, he is the well-known Imam Abū Ḥanīfah al-Nuʿmān ibn Thābit,