and also in al-Awsat (7/363/4599—Majmaʿ al-Bahrayn), through a route other than Ibn Shabib. Thus, the hidden defect is confined to al-ʿUmari; yet al-Haythami said (10/138): “Its chain of transmission is good”!

2738 — “Shall I not teach you words that the Trustworthy Spirit taught me? Say: ‘I seek refuge in the perfect words of Allah, which neither the righteous nor the wicked can surpass, from the evil of what descends from heaven and what ascends therein; from the evil of the trials of night and day; and from every nocturnal visitor—except a visitor who comes with good, O Most Merciful!’”

Al-Tabarani narrated it in al-Awsat (2/31/5547), with the chain of transmission immediately preceding it, from al-Mughirah ibn Muslim, from Hisham ibn Hassan, from Jubayr, from Khalid ibn al-Walid, who said: “I would become frightened at night, so I came to the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and said: ‘I become frightened at night, take up my sword, and strike with it at whatever I encounter.’” The Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said it. He then said: “No one narrated this hadith from Hisham ibn Hassan except al-Mughirah ibn Muslim; Shababah alone narrated it from him.”

I say: He was trustworthy, a proficient memorizer, and was relied upon by both Sahih collections. The narrators above him are likewise trustworthy and are among the narrators documented in al-Tahdhib—if Hisham ibn Hassan’s shaykh was Jubayr, for his name is unclear in the photographed copy and may be read as Humayd. Each of the two possibilities has evidence in its favour: Jubayr—namely, Ibn Nufayr—narrated from Khalid ibn al-Walid in Abu Dawud; while Humayd—namely, Ibn Hilal—was narrated from by Hisham ibn Hassan in Muslim and Abu Dawud, as found in