this is established, then the chain of transmission is authentic, though mursal. I believe that al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿUthmān is actually Ibn ʿAffān; the name Ibn ʿAffān was corrupted by the copyist into Ibn ʿUthmān. Ibn ʿAffān is trustworthy. The hadith also has a corroborating report from Ibn ʿUmar through a good chain, whose documentation has previously been given under no. (906).

2292 — “Among the signs of the approach of the Hour are the crescents becoming abnormally large: a crescent will be seen on its first night, and it will be said, ‘It is two nights old.’”

Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in al-Muʿjam al-Ṣaghīr (p. 182, no. 1130—al-Rawḍ al-Naḍīr), as well as in al-Awsaṭ (2/130/1/7007) and Musnad al-Shāmiyyīn (p. 642): “Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Azraq al-Anṭākī narrated to us in Antioch: My father narrated to us: Mubashshir ibn Ismāʿīl narrated to us from Shuʿayb ibn Abī Ḥamzah, from al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said...” He then cited it and said: “Mubashshir alone narrated it.”

I say: He is trustworthy and among the narrators of the two Shaykhs, as are all those above him. Thus, the chain is good, were it not for the fact that I do not know al-Anṭākī or his father. Both meet Ibn ʿAsākir’s criterion for inclusion in Tarīkh Dimashq, yet I did not find them in it; moreover, the Ẓāhiriyyah copy contains a lacuna. However, al-Ṭabarānī’s restricting the sole transmission to Mubashshir ibn Ismāʿīl apparently indicates that his shaykh and his father were not alone in narrating it. And Allah knows best.

In Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (3/146), it states: “Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in al-Ṣaghīr, and it contains ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Azraq al-Anṭākī, for whom I could not find a biographical entry.”

I say: He also overlooked its narration in al-Awsaṭ. From it, we have also established the correct name of al-Ṭabarānī’s shaykh, Muḥammad, for the printed editions of al-Ṣaghīr read: “ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn