“He has another hadith in al-Musnad, through ʿAṭṭāf ibn Khālid, from the aforementioned ʿUthmān (!) from his father, from his grandfather (!), concerning the one who steps over people’s necks on Friday.”

I say: ʿAṭṭāf has nothing to do with this hadith. Rather, Aḥmad (3/417) and others narrated it through Hishām ibn Ziyād—who is abandoned—from ʿUthmān ibn al-Arqam ibn Abī al-Arqam al-Makhzūmī, from his father—who was one of the Companions of the Prophet—who reported that the Prophet said it. It is cited in al-Ḍaʿīfah, no. 2811.

Thus, as you can see, the ʿUthmān mentioned is not the person being profiled, but rather his son; and the phrase “from his grandfather” is an interpolation that has no connection to the hadith. In this respect, it is like ʿAṭṭāf—and like ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUthmān! Perhaps such confusion (!) came from copyists, for it is highly improbable in view of what we know of al-Ḥāfiẓ’s knowledge and precision. In al-Iṣābah, he mentioned it through Aḥmad’s narration from ʿUthmān ibn al-Arqam, from his father, without going beyond that. He also faulted it on account of Hishām ibn Ziyād’s solitary narration, saying: “They declared him weak.”

Now that we have completed the examination of the chain of transmission of the hadith under discussion, demonstrated its weakness due to the unknown status of some of its transmitters, and clarified some of the errors made by scholars concerning it—details which you may not find elsewhere—it remains for me to examine its text. From what has preceded, you have learned that the narrations differ as to which mosque is intended by the statement that prayer therein is worth a thousand: is it the Mosque of Medina, as in al-Ṭaḥāwī’s narration, or the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, as in Aḥmad’s narration? Both narrations revolve around ʿAṭṭāf.

I found support for the first narration in the report of Yaḥyā ibn ʿImrān recorded by Abū Nuʿaym and cited earlier. Its wording is: “A prayer in this mosque of mine is better than a thousand prayers offered elsewhere, except for the Sacred Mosque.” And it adds: