Anas ibn Mālik narrated to them, saying: “We could recognize the Prophet’s coming out by the fragrance of perfume.” However, Yazīd al-Raqqāshī is weak. As for Abū Bishr Ṣāḥib al-Baṣrī—who is also said to be al-Qurā or al-Muqriʾ—Abū Ḥātim said, “I do not know him.”

Al-Dārimī then narrated, through Isḥāq ibn al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Hāshimī: al-Mughīrah ibn ʿAṭiyyah informed us from Abū al-Zubayr, from Jābir, that “whenever the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, took a road—or would take a road—anyone who followed it would know, from the pleasant fragrance of his perspiration—or, he said, from the smell of his perspiration—that he had passed along it.”

I say: This chain of transmission is weak. Abū al-Zubayr practised tadlīs and related it here using the ambiguous ʿan (“from”) formula. Al-Mughīrah ibn ʿAṭiyyah is unknown. Ibn Abī Ḥātim listed him in al-Jarḥ wa-l-Taʿdīl (4/1/227) on the basis of this very narration, but mentioned neither criticism nor accreditation concerning him. Al-Ṭūsī listed Isḥāq ibn al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Hāshimī in his Rijāl (p. 149) among the companions of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, no. 134, without mentioning any criticism or accreditation concerning him, as was generally his custom. He added to what appears in this chain that he was Medinan.

He listed him among the companions of al-Bāqir (p. 104, no. 17): “Ismāʿīl ibn al-Faḍl ibn Yaʿqūb ibn al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib: trustworthy, one of the people of Basra.” The annotator stated that he was the first, the Medinan, following al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar in al-Lisān. In my view, this is far-fetched, because their grandfathers’ names and their affiliations differ. And Allah knows best.

I then found another route for the hadith of Anas, narrated by Bishr ibn Sayḥān: ʿUmar ibn Saʿīd narrated to us—