“I know of no companionship with the Prophet for Dhu al-Kilāʿ beyond his embracing Islam and following the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, during his lifetime. I think that he was among those who came to him in a delegation, and I know of no narration from him except from ʿAwf ibn Mālik.”

The hadith has also been narrated from ʿAwf through two other routes:

The first is from Bukayr ibn ʿAbd Allāh, who said that his brother Yaʿqūb and Ibn Abī Khuṣayfah related to him that ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd, who served as Maslamah’s storyteller in Constantinople, related to them from ʿAwf ibn Mālik al-Ashjaʿī, with it. Aḥmad recorded it (6/27).

I say: Its narrators are reliable, apart from this ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd. It says in Taʿjīl al-Manfaʿah: “I do not know him.”

The other route is from Ṣāliḥ ibn Abī ʿUrayb, from Kathīr ibn Murrah, from ʿAwf ibn Mālik, who said: “ʿAwf ibn Mālik entered the mosque of Homs and found the people gathered around a man. He asked, ‘What is this gathering?’ They replied, ‘Kaʿb is telling stories.’ He said, ‘Poor man! Has he not heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say …?’” He then cited it. Aḥmad also recorded it (6/29).

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. All of its narrators are reliable apart from this Ṣāliḥ. A number of reliable narrators related from him, among them al-Layth ibn Saʿd, and Ibn Ḥibbān declared him reliable (6/457). This incident involving ʿAwf and Kaʿb occurred in the hadith of Dhu al-Kilāʿ in al-Bukhārī’s al-Tārīkh, where he added after the hadith: “Kaʿb then refrained from telling stories for a year, until Muʿāwiyah sent for him and instructed him to tell stories.”

Al-Bukhārī then said: “ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yaḥyā said: Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jubayr narrated to us, from his father, from Kaʿb ibn ʿIyāḍ, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. The first is more correct.”