al-Muʿtamir, who said, “I heard ʿAbdullāh ibn Yasār relate it from Ḥudhayfa.”

I (al-Albānī) comment: This chain is sound. All of its transmitters are trustworthy; they all figure in the collections of the two Shaykhs (al-Bukhārī and Muslim) except for ʿAbdullāh ibn Yasār, the Juhayni from Kūfa. He himself, however, is reliable—al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Ḥibbān graded him trustworthy, and al-Dhahabī said in Mukhtaṣar al-Bayhaqī (1/140/2): “Its isnād is acceptable.”

Rabīʿī ibn Ḥirāsh also corroborated the report on the authority of Ḥudhayfa ibn al-Yamān. He said:

“A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and said, ‘I saw in a dream that I met some of the People of the Book, and they said, “You are an excellent people were it not that you say: ma shāʾa Allāh wa shāʾa Muḥammad (What Allah wills and what Muḥammad wills).”’ The Prophet ﷺ replied, ‘I have indeed been displeased with that phrase of yours; therefore say: ma shāʾa Allāh thumma shāʾa Muḥammad (What Allah wills, then what Muḥammad wills).’”

Ibn Mājah recorded it (2118) and Aḥmad (5/393); the wording above is Aḥmad’s, transmitted through Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmayr.

On the surface this chain is sound, for all of its narrators are trustworthy, yet discrepancies exist in what is reported from Ibn ʿUmayr. Sufyān narrated it from him as cited, whereas Maʿmar transmitted from him—on the authority of Jābir ibn Samura—that:

“One of the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ saw in a dream …,” conveying the same purport. Al-Ṭaḥāwī recorded this version.

Shuʿbah likewise reported it from him, from Rabīʿī, from al-Ṭufayl, ʿĀʾisha’s maternal brother, who said:

“A polytheist said to a Muslim, ‘You are indeed a fine people …,’” and so forth. Al-Dārimī narrated it (2/295). Abū ʿAwānah also supported it through ʿAbd al-Malik with the same wording, and Ibn Mājah recorded this corroboration as well (2118/2).