In another narration from him, through the same chain, it is similar, except that it mentions ʿAṭiyyah ibn Qays in place of Ḥabīb ibn ʿUbayd. He also transmitted it through Muḥammad ibn Muṣʿab: “Abū Bakr narrated it to us” through the same chain, except that he differed from him in its text, saying: “Awjabahu duʿwatan (more obligatory in respect of supplication).” I said: “Ajwabahu (more likely to receive a response)?” He said: “No; rather, awjabahu,” by which he meant the response.

I say: This chain of transmission is weak, because this Ibn Abī Maryam had become confused in his later years. For this reason, al-Haythamī decisively judged it weak (2/264), and attributed it to Aḥmad alone. As for al-Suyūṭī, in al-Ṣaghīr he attributed it to Ibn Naṣr and al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr, from ʿAmr ibn ʿAbasah through this chain; but he said, “aḥaqqu bihi” (more deserving of it), in place of “ajwabahu duʿwatan.” He likewise cited it in al-Kabīr, and in both places where he cited its sources he added Ibn Jarīr. Al-Manāwī said in his commentary: “Aḥaqqu bihi appears thus in the author’s handwriting. Some copies have ‘ajwabahu duʿwatan,’ but this has no basis in his handwriting, although it is a narrated variant.”

I say: It is most likely that this variation in this word originated with Abū Bakr himself, due to his confusion in later life. For I have seen it in al-Musnad through him with the wording of the heading, “ajwabahu duʿwatan,” and with the other wording, “awjabahu duʿwatan.” It therefore appears that Ibn Naṣr and those mentioned alongside him have the wording “aḥaqqu bihi,” and that it is not a scribal corruption on the part of al-Suyūṭī. Regrettably, the hadith is found in Ibn Naṣr’s Qiyām al-Layl (p. 50), but its abridgment by al-Maqrīzī has omitted both its chain of transmission and its text in full; nothing remains of it except his statement: “It contains a report from ʿAmr ibn ʿAbasah, from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: ‘The night prayer is performed two units at a time.’”

In any case, the chain of transmission is weak. Yet its first part is unquestionably authentic, for it is found in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and elsewhere, from Ibn ʿUmar, attributed to the Prophet with this wording. It is cited in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd (1197) and elsewhere. The other part, with the wording of the heading, has two further chains from Ibn ʿAbasah in al-Musnad