And in al-Kashif he said: “Trustworthy.” Thus, he did not give weight to Ibn Ma‘in’s weakening of him or to Ibn al-Qattan’s declaring him unknown. In my view, this was because he took into account the reports of these trustworthy narrators from him, together with the absence of any rejected narration among his reports. In such a case, one is inclined to accept what he alone narrates, unless he contradicts trustworthy narrators. In this hadith, however, he did not contradict them; rather, he concurred with what is well known concerning the Prophet’s prayer, peace and blessings be upon him, facing a spear. This is documented in my book Irwa’ al-Ghalil (504).

Moreover, the hadith has a corroborating report, though it offers little cause for satisfaction because of its extreme weakness. It is narrated by Muhammad ibn al-Qasim al-Asadi: Thawr ibn Yazid narrated to us from Yazid ibn Yazid ibn Jabir, from Makhul, from Yazid ibn Jabir, from Abu Hurayrah, attributed to the Prophet: “A prayer-screen the size of the rear of a saddle suffices, even if it is only as thin as a hair.” Ibn Khuzaymah (808) and al-Hakim recorded it, and al-Hakim said: “Authentic according to the criteria of the two Shaykhs.” Al-Dhahabi agreed with him. Ibn Khuzaymah said: “I fear that Muhammad ibn al-Qasim erred in attributing this report to the Prophet.”

I say: He is referring to what ‘Abd al-Razzaq narrated in al-Musannaf (2290), from al-Thawri, from Yazid ibn Yazid ibn Jabir, from his father, from Abu Hurayrah, who said it. He then narrated it from Ma‘mar, from Isma‘il ibn Umayyah, who traced the report to Abu Hurayrah, who said it—also as a report attributed to the Companion. I say: The latter chain is continuous, whereas the preceding one has a double break. Yet Yazid ibn Jabir appears to be unknown, for al-Bukhari and Ibn Abi Hatim mentioned no narrator from him other than Makhul. Yet Ibn