Abu al-Zubayr’s narrations from Jabir: the first is his hadith concerning the mature animal, and the other is the earlier hadith concerning slaughtering. It is well known to those accomplished scholars who are familiar with this discipline that Abu ʿAwanah’s Musnad is a mustakhraj based on Sahih Muslim: in it, he relates Muslim’s hadiths through chains of his own leading to Muslim’s shaykh, or to someone above him in the chain, whenever that is possible—and that is generally the case. This is what Abu ʿAwanah did with the first hadith, for he transmitted it through chains of his own from Zuhayr, from Abu al-Zubayr, from Jabir.

As for the other hadith, it is not mentioned in his Musnad, though it should have been included there through its chain from Abu al-Zubayr, or from Ibn Jurayj from him. It therefore appears that it was omitted by the copyist or the printer, while its suspended chain remained—namely, his statement: “Muhammad ibn Bakr narrated it ...” and so on. Thus, the pronoun in “narrated it” was taken as referring back to the first hadith, the hadith of the mature animal, and this caused the confusion. In fact, it should refer back to the other hadith, the hadith concerning slaughtering. This is what the foregoing explanation and investigation require, and it yields a preponderant likelihood that the hadith was omitted from the printed edition of Abu ʿAwanah’s Musnad. Certainty can only be attained by consulting the eighth manuscript volume, preserved in the Ẓāhiriyyah Library in Damascus (Hadith—274), for it contains the Book of Sacrifices. Perhaps we shall obtain a copy of it, for it is not within my reach at present. I write this while in my home, which I built about two years ago, in Amman, Jordan.

2708 — “There is a morsel of flesh in the son of Adam: if it is sound, his entire body is sound; and if it is corrupt, his entire body is corrupt. Indeed, it is the heart.”

Abu Dawud al-Ṭayālisi narrated it in al-Musnad (788): Shuʿbah narrated to us, from Mujālid, from al-Shaʿbi, from al-Nuʿman ibn Bashir, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, say it.

I say: This is an authentic hadith. Its narrators are trustworthy and well known, among the transmitters of the two Shaykhs