I say: He is a truthful narrator whose hadith is good, and he is among the narrators of Muslim. There has been some criticism of him, but it does not reduce his hadith below the rank of good, Allah willing. However, I do not know his teacher, al-Haytham ibn ʿAlqamah ibn Qays ibn Thaʿlabah, nor have I seen anyone mention him. I therefore fear that some textual corruption occurred in the transmission. For Abū Isḥāq al-Ḥarbī recorded the hadith in Gharīb al-Ḥadīth as follows: “ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar narrated to us; Yūnus ibn Bukayr narrated to us, from al-Haytham, from ʿAṭiyyah ibn Qays, from al-Azraq ibn Qays,” with the same report.

Al-Ḥarbī was a trustworthy imam and hadith master, so his narration takes precedence over that of ʿAlī ibn Saʿīd al-Rāzī. Although Maslamah ibn Qāsim declared the latter trustworthy, al-Dāraquṭnī said: “He is not particularly strong.” Thus, his wording in the chain of transmission, “al-Haytham ibn ʿAlqamah ibn Qays ibn Thaʿlabah,” is one of his errors, if it has been accurately preserved from him. What is correct is al-Ḥarbī’s wording: “al-Haytham, from ʿAṭiyyah ibn Qays.” This al-Haytham is Ibn ʿImrān al-Dimashqī, whom Ibn Ḥibbān declared trustworthy. A number of trustworthy narrators transmitted from him, as I had established in “the other book,” under hadith 967. There I discussed in detail the prescribed legitimacy of relying upon the hands when rising from the second prostration or from the first sitting for the testimony of faith, and I also mentioned there a strong corroborating report for ʿAṭiyyah ibn Qays; so consult it.

It is remarkable that this hadith escaped everyone who wrote on hadith sourcing, as I mentioned there. More remarkable still is that al-Haythamī did not include it in Majmaʿ al-Baḥrayn fī Zawāʾid al-Muʿjamayn, nor even in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid, although he included in the latter a report contrary to it. He said (2/136): “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd said: ‘I closely observed ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿūd during the prayer and saw him rise without sitting. He would rise on the fronts of his feet in the first and third units of prayer.’ Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, and its narrators are those of the authentic collections.”