Then Gabriel said: “O Muhammad, had you seen me taking black mud from the sea and cramming it into his mouth, for fear that mercy might reach him.”

Al-Tirmidhi (3106), al-Hakim (4/249), Ahmad (1/245, 309), Ibn Jarir (17861), and al-Khatib in al-Tarikh (8/102) recorded it. Al-Tirmidhi said: “A good hadith.”

I say: That is, good due to supporting evidence, for Ibn Judʿan had poor retention, and Yusuf ibn Mihran is weak in hadith. Al-Manawi overlooked the first, authentic chain and consequently declared the hadith defective on account of this Ibn Mihran, objecting to al-Hakim and al-Dhahabi’s authentication of it according to the criteria of the two Shaykhs.

As for the corroborating report, Muhammad ibn Humayd al-Razi narrated to us: Hukkam ibn Salm narrated to us: ʿAnbasah ibn Saʿid narrated to us, from Kathir ibn Zadhan, from Abu Hazim, from Abu Hurayrah, as a Prophetic report, with wording similar to that cited in the heading. Ibn Jarir recorded it in his Exegesis (17860), and al-Sahmi in History of Jurjan (164). Ibn Kathir said after it: “Concerning this Kathir ibn Zadhan, Ibn Maʿin said: ‘I do not know him.’ Abu Zurʿah and Abu Hatim said: ‘He is unknown.’ The rest of its narrators are trustworthy.” That is what he said! Muhammad ibn Humayd al-Razi, though one of the hadith masters, was weak, even if Ibn Maʿin held a favorable opinion of him.

Al-hal: black mud, like dark silt. Al-Nihayah.

2016 — “Death by execution while restrained does not pass over any sin without erasing it.”

Al-Bazzar recorded it in his Musnad (1545), as did Abu al-Shaykh in al-Tabaqat (66/2) and Abu Nuʿaym in Reports of Isfahan (2/36, 191), from Yaʿqub al-Qummi, from ʿAnbasah, from Hisham ibn