However, the hadith has a corroborating report through Abū al-Zubayr, from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, attributed to the Prophet: “Had you said, ‘In the name of Allah,’ the angels would have borne you aloft while the people looked on.”

It includes a story. Al-Nasāʾī narrated it (2/60), and Ibn Kathīr, in al-Bidāyah (4/26), attributed it only to al-Bayhaqī in al-Dalāʾil, adding: “until they carried you into the atmosphere of the sky.” I say: All the narrators in its chain are trustworthy and meet Muslim’s criteria, but Abū al-Zubayr practised tadlīs and narrated it using an ambiguous “from” formulation.

In sum, the hadith is good in view of all these routes. And Allah knows best. I shall cite it again, with further verification, if Allah wills, under no. 2796.

2172 — “If it were only one surah, it would suffice the people.”

Abū Dāwūd (1/385), al-Ṭaḥāwī in al-Mushkil (2/424), Aḥmad (3/80), and his son ʿAbd Allāh also narrated it from Jarīr, from al-Aʿmash, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, who said—and Aḥmad’s wording is as follows:

“The wife of Ṣafwān ibn al-Muʿaṭṭal came to the Prophet, while we were with him, and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, my husband Ṣafwān ibn al-Muʿaṭṭal beats me when I pray, makes me break my fast when I fast, and does not perform the Fajr prayer until the sun has risen.’ Ṣafwān was present with him, so he asked him about what she had said. He replied: ‘O Messenger of Allah, as for her statement, “He beats me when I pray,” she recites two surahs, and I have forbidden her from doing so.’ He said: So he said—and mentioned it—‘If it were only one surah, it would suffice the people.’

“As for her statement, ‘He makes me break my fast,’ she fasts while I am a young man and cannot restrain myself.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then said that day: “No woman may fast except with her husband’s permission.”

He said: “And as for her statement that I…”