al-Kashf: “Al-Bazzar narrated it, and its narrators are trustworthy!”

Al-Nasa’i narrated in The Deeds of Day and Night (329), and Ibn Hibban (2145), through Ja‘far ibn Sulayman, from Thabit, from Anas, that the Prophet ﷺ said: “He would visit the Ansar, greet their children, and stroke their heads.”

I say: Its chain of transmission is authentic according to Muslim’s criteria. Greeting children is established in the two Sahihs through another route from Anas (may Allah be pleased with him).

2113 — “Dates containing worms would be brought to him, and he would inspect them, removing the weevils from them.”

It was narrated by Abu Dawud (2/148), and from him by al-Bayhaqi in al-Shu‘ab (2/191/201); by Ibn Majah (2/317) in abridged form; and likewise by Abu al-Shaykh (p. 221)—all of them from Salm ibn Qutaybah, from Hammam, from Ishaq ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi Talhah, from Anas ibn Malik, traced back to the Prophet ﷺ.

I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission according to the criteria of the two Shaykhs. Hammam is Ibn Yahya ibn Dinar al-Azdi al-‘Awdhi al-Muhallami, their freedman. Al-Bayhaqi considered it defective because the Companion link is omitted, since he narrated it through Muhammad ibn Kathir, who said: Hammam informed us, from Ishaq ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi Talhah, that the Prophet ﷺ would be brought dates containing worms; then he mentioned its meaning.

I do not consider that a defect, for Salm ibn Qutaybah is more trustworthy than Muhammad ibn Kathir—who is al-‘Abdi—as is plainly evident to anyone who consults the statements of the leading authorities of narrator criticism and accreditation concerning them in the biographical works. This is especially so since Salm’s version contains an additional detail, and an addition reported by a trustworthy narrator is unanimously accepted here. A prohibition against inspecting dates has also been reported from the Prophet ﷺ, but it is not authentic, as I explained in al-Da‘ifah (5228).