“One day, I called on ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn, and he said: ‘O Abū al-Aswad’”—then he mentioned the hadith—“‘A man from Juhaynah or Muzaynah came to the Prophet and said: “Messenger of Allah, do you see that what people do and strive over today is something decreed for them and already passed upon them in a prior divine decree, or is it something that lies ahead of them, brought to them by their Prophet, through which the proof has been established against them?” He said: “Rather, it is something decreed for them and already passed upon them.” The man said: “Then why do they act, Messenger of Allah?” He said...” Then he mentioned it.

Ibn Jarīr also transmitted it in his Exegesis (30/135) through the route of Ṣafwān ibn ʿĪsā and Abū ʿĀṣim al-Nabīl, who both said: ʿAzrah ibn Thābit narrated it to us with this chain. I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission; all its narrators are trustworthy and are narrators of Muslim. Ibn Yaʿmur’s name was also Yaḥyā.

Muslim (8/48–49) and al-Ṭabarānī, in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (18/223/557), also transmitted it through the route of ʿUthmān ibn ʿUmar, who said: ʿAzrah ibn Thābit narrated it to us with this chain, in a similar wording, except for the first portion of the hadith cited under the heading.

Al-Suyūṭī cited it in abbreviated form in al-Jāmiʿ with the wording: “Whomever Allah created for one of the two abodes, He grants him success in performing its deeds.” He said: “Al-Ṭabarānī transmitted it in al-Kabīr from ʿImrān.”

I say: Al-Haythamī did not cite it at all in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid, apparently because Muslim had recorded it, as we have mentioned. Al-Ṭabarānī transmitted it through the route of ʿAwn ibn ʿUmārah, who said: ʿAzrah narrated it to us with this chain. I say: ʿAwn is weak, but it is strengthened by the preceding reports of Ṣafwān and Abū ʿĀṣim. Al-Manāwī’s statement in al-Taysīr, “Its chain is good,” is an evident error.