prostrated, with his hands level with his ears.” On its apparent meaning, this indicates that the gesture was made during the sitting between the two prostrations, since, after relating the gesture, he says: “Then he prostrated ...”

I say: Yes, ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated this in his Muṣannaf (2/68–69), and Imam Aḥmad (4/317) and al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (2/34–35) narrated it from him. In his annotation to it, Shaykh Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al-Aʿẓamī claimed: “It was transmitted by the Four, apart from al-Tirmidhī, and by al-Bayhaqī, distributed across various chapters.” This is a false claim, demonstrating his failure to exercise the requisite scrutiny, for none of them contains his wording after the gesture, “Then he prostrated.” Rather, ʿAbd al-Razzāq alone narrated this from al-Thawrī, thereby differing from Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Firyābī, who closely accompanied al-Thawrī and did not mention the prostration in question. Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it from him (22/33/78).

ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Walīd corroborated al-Firyābī, narrating: “Sufyān narrated to me ...,” with the same report. Aḥmad recorded it (4/318). Ibn al-Walīd was truthful, though he sometimes erred; thus, his narration, corroborated by al-Firyābī, is more preponderant than ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s narration—particularly since his biographical notices mention reports of his that were deemed objectionable, one of which was his narration from al-Thawrī. See Ibn Ḥajar’s Tahdhīb and al-Dhahabī’s Mīzān. This addition, then, is among his errors.

What further confirms this is that a large number of reliable, meticulous transmitters corroborated al-Thawrī in his preserved narration, including ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ziyād, Shuʿbah, Zāʾidah ibn Qudāmah, Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal, Zuhayr ibn Muʿāwiyah, Abū al-Aḥwaṣ, Abū ʿAwānah, Ibn Idrīs, Sallām ibn Sulaym, and Sufyān ibn