- As for the hadith of Tamīm, it is narrated by ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, concerning whom the reports differ in several ways:
First: Abū Badr said: “ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz narrated to us, saying: ‘Someone whom I do not regard as suspect informed me, from Tamīm al-Dārī, who said: “I asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about a man from among the people of disbelief who embraces Islam at the hands of a Muslim man: what is the prescribed ruling concerning him? He said: ‘The one [at whose hands he embraced Islam] has the greatest right to him in his life and after his death.’”’”
It was transmitted by Abū ʿAmr ibn al-Sammāk in his Hadith (2/25/1), and from him by al-Bayhaqī (10/296).
I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy, were it not for the unnamed man. Although he was trustworthy and not regarded with suspicion by ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUmar, who narrated from him, such a declaration of reliability is not accepted by the majority so long as the narrator thus declared reliable remains unnamed. However, he is named in some of the forthcoming narrations, where it becomes clear that he is trustworthy. The hadith is thereby established, praise be to Allah.
Second: Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamzah said: “ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz narrated to me, saying: ‘I heard ʿAbd Allah ibn Mawhab narrate to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, from Qabīṣah ibn Dhuʾayb, from Tamīm, with this report.’”
It was transmitted by Abū Dāwūd (2/20), al-Ḥākim (2/219), al-Bayhaqī (10/296, 297), and al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr (1273), through several routes from Yaḥyā with this report.
I say: This is a good chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy and are narrators whose reports appear in the two Sahihs, apart from ʿAbd Allah ibn Mawhab—though it has also been said: Ibn Wahb; the former is correct—and he is trustworthy, as stated in al-Taqrīb. However, although ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz is among their narrators, some scholars criticized him on account of his retention. Al-Dhahabī said in al-Mughnī: “A group declared him trustworthy, while Abū Mushir deemed him weak.”