the Prophet as “Yūshaʿ,” yet that wording is only attributed to Kaʿb—mawqūf—whereas in the first narration it is marfūʿ, traced back to the Prophet ﷺ himself.
Likewise, this version names the town as “Ariḥā” (Jericho), while the first narration calls it Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem), and that is the correct identification. Strangely, al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar overlooked this point and, when commenting on the phrase “the town” that appears in the version recorded by the two Ṣaḥīḥs, he writes:
“It is Ariḥā—hamza with fatḥa, rāʾ with kasra, followed by a quiescent yāʾ and a hāʾ without a dot, with a short final vowel. Al-Ḥākim called it by this name in his report from Kaʿb.”
Thus he failed to notice what we have just mentioned—that in the marfūʿ ḥadīth the town is called “Bayt al-Maqdis”—even though only a few lines earlier in the same book he had cited that wording and declared it authentic, as I have just quoted from him.
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr, however, did take note of the matter. After quoting from the People of the Book that the sun was held back for Yūshaʿ during the conquest of Ariḥā, he comments (1/323):
“There is room for reconsideration here. What seems more likely—and Allah knows best—is that this occurred when Bayt al-Maqdis was opened, for that was the primary objective, while the conquest of Ariḥā was merely a means to it.”
He then adduced the first route of the ḥadīth as evidence, and after presenting it solely through Aḥmad’s chain he said:
“Aḥmad alone transmitted it by this path, and it meets al-Bukhārī’s criteria. It indicates that the one who opened Bayt al-Maqdis was Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn, not Mūsā, and that the stopping of the sun…"