with him, who said: “I saw the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, bring ‘Abd Allah ibn Khatal out from behind the curtains of the Ka‘bah, then have him executed as a prisoner. He then said: ‘After this, no one of Quraysh shall be executed as a prisoner.’”

Al-Hakim transmitted it (3/637), and both he and al-Dhahabi made no comment on it.

I say: Regarding this Yusuf ibn Ya‘qub, Ibn Abi Hatim said (4/2/233): “Ibn Abi Dhi’b and Abu Ma‘shar narrated from him.” He mentioned neither any criticism nor accreditation of him, although Ibn Hibban declared him trustworthy (5/551 and 7/635)!

2428 — “Do not kill locusts, for they are an army among the armies of Allah, the Most Great.”

Abu Muhammad al-Makhladi transmitted it in al-Fawa’id (fol. 289/2), and Abu ‘Abd Allah ibn Mandah in Ma‘rifat al-Sahabah (37/201/1), from Sa‘id ibn ‘Amr al-Hadrami; al-Tabarani transmitted it in al-Awsat (1/128/2), from Muhammad ibn Isma‘il ibn ‘Ayyash; and Ibn Mandah likewise (2/243/1), from ‘Abd al-Wahhab ibn al-Dahhak. All three narrated from Isma‘il ibn ‘Ayyash, from Damdam ibn Zur‘ah, from Shurayh ibn ‘Ubayd, from Abu Zuhayr al-Numayri, attributed to the Prophet. Al-Tabarani said: “It is not narrated from Abu Zuhayr except through this chain of transmission; Isma‘il alone narrated it.”

I say: He is trustworthy in his narrations from Syrian narrators, and this is one of them. Those above him are likewise trustworthy, so the chain of transmission is good. As for al-Haythami’s declaring it defective when he said in Majma‘ al-Zawa’id (4/39): “Al-Tabarani narrated it in al-Kabir and al-Awsat, and it contains Muhammad ibn Isma‘il ibn ‘Ayyash, and he—”