However, Muslim (4/31–32) transmitted it through Isḥāq ibn Sulaymān, from Aflah, with the same report, except that he did not mention, “then both of you complete your circumambulation.” Rather, he said: “Then let her circumambulate the House.” I therefore fear that making the circumambulation dual was an error on Abū Nuʿaym’s part. For I found another narrator who contradicted him in Abū Dāwūd (1/313–314): Khālid—al-Ḥadhdhāʾ—from Aflah, with wording similar to Muslim’s version. Thus, in my critical judgment, this dual wording is anomalous, since Abū Nuʿaym contradicted the others and alone reported it, unlike Isḥāq ibn Sulaymān and Khālid al-Ḥadhdhāʾ, both of whom are trustworthy authorities.

I then found another corroborating narrator for them: Abū Bakr al-Ḥanafī, in al-Bukhārī (3/328) and Abū Dāwūd. This is further supported by the fact that it does not occur, either in wording or in meaning, in any of the numerous routes of the hadith from ʿĀʾishah found in Musnad Aḥmad (6/43, 78, 113, 122, 124, 163, 165, 177, 191, 219, 233, 245, 266, 273), some of which are also in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (3/297, 324, 464, 477–478, 482; 4/99; 8/84) and Muslim (4/27–34). Likewise, it does not occur in Jābir’s hadith in al-Bukhārī (3/478–480), Muslim (4/35–36), and Aḥmad (3/309, 366). Nor does it occur in the hadith under discussion, neither through the route first mentioned nor through the other route found in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and elsewhere.

There is, however, a version in Aḥmad (1/198), through Ibn Abī Najīḥ, from his father, who related that he had been informed by someone who heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr say: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said ... and he related it in similar terms. But its wording is: “So both of you enter ihram and return; and that was on the night of departure.” Yet the intermediary between Abū Najīḥ and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is unnamed, and so he is unknown; consequently, his additional wording is rejected. Although al-Ḥāfiẓ remained silent in al-Fatḥ (3/479) regarding the addition at its end—“and that was on the night of departure”—perhaps this was because it is supported by corroborating reports. And Allah knows best.