2080 — “Whenever he ascended the pulpit, we would turn our faces toward him.”

Al-Bukhārī narrated it in al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr (4/2/47), and Ibn Ḥibbān in The Trustworthy Narrators among the Successors of the Successors (7/518), through Muṭīʿ al-Ghazzāl, from his father, from his grandfather, attributed to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. Both included it in Muṭīʿ’s biographical entry and gave him the kunyah Abū al-Ḥasan. Ibn Abī Ḥātim related from Ibn Maʿīn that he declared him trustworthy, and from Abū Zurʿah that he said: “A Kūfan; there is no harm in him.” He also mentioned that he narrated from al-Shaʿbī, and that Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, Wakīʿ, Yaʿlā ibn ʿUbayd, and Abū Nuʿaym narrated from him. Yet he did not list this Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim among those who narrated from him, nor did he mention that he narrated from his father, from his grandfather. Rather, he mentioned all of this in another entry immediately following it, stating:

“Muṭīʿ al-Anṣārī, Abū Yaḥyā, a Medinan. He narrated from his father, from his grandfather, and narrated from Zayd ibn Aslam, Nāfiʿ, and Abū al-Zinād. Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim, Abū Ibrāhīm al-Asadī, narrated from him. My father said: ‘Unknown.’”

Al-Dhahabī abridged these remarks in al-Mīzān and al-Ḍuʿafāʾ, saying: “Muṭīʿ, Abū Yaḥyā al-Anṣārī, from Nāfiʿ: unknown.” Al-Ḥāfiẓ added in al-Lisān: “And in Ibn Ḥibbān’s Thiqāt: ‘Muṭīʿ, Abū Yaḥyā al-ʿArābī (!), from his father, from his grandfather, said: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, would ...’”—then he cited the hadith under this entry—“and Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim narrated from him. He said: ‘I do not know him or his father.’”