The other route is through al-Haytham ibn Jamīl, who said: “ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Muthannā ibn Anas narrated to us, from Thumāmah ibn Anas, from Anas,” with the same report. It was recorded by al-Ṭaḥāwī in Mushkil al-Āthār (1/461), al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ (1/55/2, no. 976—according to my numbering), Ibn Ḥazm in al-Muḥallā (8/321), and al-Ḍiyāʾ al-Maqdisī in al-Mukhtārah (fol. 71/1).

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Its narrators, apart from al-Haytham ibn Jamīl, are all among those whose reports al-Bukhārī relied upon in his Ṣaḥīḥ. Al-Haytham was a trustworthy, precise memorizer and one of Imam Aḥmad’s shaykhs. He narrated this hadith to Aḥmad, as al-Khallāl related from Abū Dāwūd, who said: “I heard Aḥmad narrating it.” This is found in Ibn al-Qayyim’s Aḥkām al-Mawlūd (p. 88, Damascus edition).

Remarkably, Ibn al-Qayyim then followed this route with the first route and said: “Aḥmad said: ‘It is rejected,’ and he declared ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Muḥarrar weak.” Yet he did not declare this other route weak. Al-Ṭaḥāwī and Ibn Ḥazm did likewise, so their silence regarding it may be taken as an indication that they accepted it. It deserves such acceptance, for all its narrators are trustworthy by consensus except ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Muthannā, the son of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Anas ibn Mālik. Although al-Bukhārī relied upon him, the scholars differed greatly concerning him, as may be seen in al-Tahdhīb and elsewhere. Al-Dhahabī mentioned him in al-Mutakallam Fīhim bimā Lā Yūjib al-Radd (129/190). Thus, he is of middling standing.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar stated in the introduction to al-Fatḥ (p. 416) that al-Bukhārī relied upon him only in his reports from his uncle Thumāmah, and that when he reported from anyone else, al-Bukhārī cited him only as corroboration. I say: Perhaps this was due to ʿAbd Allāh’s close relationship with his uncle and his familiarity with his hadith; thus, he knew his uncle’s hadith better than he knew the hadith of others. It is as though, by this practice to which al-Ḥāfiẓ alluded, al-Bukhārī reconciled the view of those who declared him trustworthy with that of those who declared him weak: in his reports from his uncle, he is a reliable authority, whereas in his reports from anyone else—