“Truthful, though he may have erred.”

I say: The rest of its narrators are trustworthy, so the chain of transmission is good. As for al-Haythamī’s remark concerning Aḥmad ibn al-Qāsim in al-Awsaṭ—“If he is al-Rayyān, then he is weak; and if he is someone else, I do not know him. The rest of its narrators are trustworthy”—I say: this was an oversight on his part, one which his imitator, Dr. Maḥmūd al-Ṭaḥḥān, followed. As is his habit, he made no comment on it. Indeed, it may be said of all his annotations and source-documentations that they contain no critical investigation, but are sheer imitation.

I say this because this Aḥmad ibn al-Qāsim is not al-Rayyān; rather, he is Aḥmad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Musāwir al-Jawharī. Al-Ṭabarānī cited him among a series of hadiths recorded under his biographical entry, from hadith 505 to 611, explicitly stating in the first and last of them: “Aḥmad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Musāwir al-Jawharī narrated to us ...” In another hadith, no. 513, he explicitly identified him as Ibn Musāwir. He is trustworthy and has a biographical entry in History of Baghdad (3/349).

The hadith establishes the permissibility of praying in a blanket with which a sleeper covers himself. It is corroborated by the hadiths stating that the Prophet, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, would pray wearing a wrap, a portion of which covered one of his wives while she was menstruating. Some of these hadiths have been documented in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd (393–394). This is not contradicted by the hadith of ʿĀʾishah found there (392): “He would not pray in our blankets,” for it is to be understood as an expression of scrupulousness or precaution, out of fear that they might contain some impurity. This is supported by the hadith of Muʿāwiyah, may Allah be pleased with him, who asked his sister, Umm Ḥabībah, the Prophet’s wife, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him: “Would the Messenger of Allah, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, pray in the garment in which he had intercourse with her?” She replied: “Yes, if he did not see any impurity on it.” It was recorded by the compilers of the Sunan, except al-Tirmidhī. Its chain of transmission is authentic, and it has been documented in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd (390).