and he narrated it using an ambiguous “from” formula.

However, the hadith is authentic, for it has many corroborating reports, except for the case of one who falls from his mount; for that, there is a corroborating report from the hadith of Abu Malik al-Ash‘ari, which I have cited in Ahkam al-Jana’iz (p. 37). I have included it here only because al-Suyuti, in his treatise Abwab al-Sa‘adah (no. 58—Egypt), limited his attribution to al-Bayhaqi. Its editor, Professor Najm ‘Abd al-Rahman Khalaf, did not attribute it to Ahmad, although it meets al-Haythami’s criterion, and al-Haythami did not include it under either the chapters on jihad or those on funerals.

It is further corroborated by the hadith of ‘Uqbah ibn Malik, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Whoever is thrown from his mount is a martyr.” It was recorded by Abu Ya‘la (2/486) and al-Tabarani in al-Mu‘jam al-Kabir (17/323/892), whose wording it is. Abu Ya‘la’s wording is: “...in the path of Allah and then dies, he is a martyr.”

Al-Tabarani’s chain of transmission is authentic, as is that of Abu Ya‘la, except that it contains: “‘Abd Allah ibn Wahb, from ‘Amr ibn Malik...” I do not know who this ‘Amr is. It appears that this is a corruption of “‘Amr ibn al-Harith,” as it occurs in al-Tabarani, and he was one of Ibn Wahb’s well-known shaykhs. It appears that the same occurred in al-Haythami’s copy of Abu Ya‘la, for he said (5/283): “Abu Ya‘la narrated it, and it contains someone whom I do not know.” Then, elsewhere (5/301), he cited it with al-Tabarani’s wording and said: “Its narrators are trustworthy.”

1668 — “You know that the return is to Allah, then to Paradise or to Hell: an abode with no departure, and everlastingness with no death, in bodies that do not die.”

Recorded by al-Hakim (1/83) through Muslim ibn Khalid, from ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn