as did al-ʿAynī in al-ʿUmdah (7/307), along with others. The distinguished scholar al-Ālūsī said in his exegesis (5/449): “Ibn al-Jawzī claimed that it is fabricated, but this is not so. It has, however, been said that there is weakness in its chain of transmission, which is remedied by corroboration.” Before him, al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar had reached the same conclusion and refuted Ibn al-Jawzī in Takhrīj al-Kashshāf (4/114). This is the only position open to the critical investigator, as you see demonstrated in our documentation of this report, praise be to Allah.

There are other hadiths concerning the number of prophets which, taken as a whole, agree with the preceding hadiths that their number was greater than that of the messengers. They are narrated from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī and from Anas ibn Mālik through several routes, and are recorded by Abū Yaʿlā, al-Ṭabarānī, and al-Ḥākim. Perhaps we shall find time to examine and document them in their appropriate place on another occasion, if Allah Most High wills. I later traced them in al-Ḍaʿīfah, no. 6090.

Know that this hadith, together with the other hadiths we have mentioned, indicates a distinction between a messenger and a prophet. This is also indicated by the Quran, in the saying of Allah, Exalted is He: “We never sent before you any messenger or prophet but that, when he recited, Satan cast something into his recitation”—the verse.

This is the view followed by the majority of exegetes, from the leading scholar Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī to the last of the critical scholars, al-Ālūsī. It is also what Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah stated decisively in more than one place in his Fatwas (Majmūʿ, 10/290 and 18/7): every messenger is a prophet, but not every prophet is a messenger. Al-Qurṭubī said in his exegesis (12/80):