2236 — “Jesus, son of Mary, will descend, and their leader, the Mahdi, will say, ‘Come and lead us in prayer.’ But he will reply, ‘No. Some of them are leaders over others—an honor from Allah for this ummah.’”

Al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Usāmah transmitted it in his Musnad: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm narrated to us; Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAqīl narrated to us, from his father, from Wahb ibn Munabbih, from Jābir, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said this hadith. This is how it appears in Ibn al-Qayyim’s al-Manār al-Munīf fī al-Ṣaḥīḥ wa al-Ḍaʿīf (pp. 147–148). He said: “This is a good chain of transmission.” Shaykh al-ʿAbbād also endorsed this in his treatise on the Mahdi, published in the first issue of the twelfth year of the Journal of the Islamic University (p. 304).

I say: It is as Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allah Most High have mercy on him, said, for all its narrators are trustworthy and are among the narrators of Abū Dāwūd. However, it has been deemed defective on account of a break between Wahb and Jābir. Ibn Maʿīn said concerning this Ismāʿīl: “He is trustworthy, a truthful man. But the written account that he transmits from Wahb, from Jābir, is of no consequence; it is merely a book that came into their possession, and Wahb heard nothing from Jābir.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Mizzī rebutted him, stating in Tahdhīb al-Kamāl: “Abū Bakr Ibn Khuzaymah transmitted in his Ṣaḥīḥ, from Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā, from Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm, from Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAqīl, from Wahb ibn Munabbih, who said: ‘This is what I asked Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh about, and he informed me that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, used to say: “Tie the mouths of waterskins and close the doors...”’—the hadith. This is an authentic chain to Wahb ibn Munabbih, and it contains a refutation