al-Majmaʿ,” nor did al-Mundhiri in al-Targhib, followed by Shaykh al-Banna in al-Fath al-Rabbani. Indeed, ʿAmr ibn Hazm has no reports at all in Musnad Ahmad. Al-Mundhiri (4/190), and then al-Haythami (3/61), did, however, cite a similar report on the authority of ʿUmarah ibn Hazm, transmitted by al-Tabarani in al-Kabir; its chain includes Ibn Lahiʿah, who is weak.”

I say: Through this investigation and tracing of the sources, two important facts became clear to me. First, the hadith is authentic, because ʿAmr ibn al-Harith corroborated Ibn Lahiʿah. Second, the printed Musnad Ahmad contains a lacuna, as evidenced by al-Hafiz and others attributing this hadith to it. This leads me to think that there was another recension containing more material than the printed one. In this respect, it is like the printed Musnad Abu Yaʿla, for another recension exists that is more extensive than it. This is the recension upon which al-Hafiz relied in al-Matalib al-ʿAliyah, unlike his teacher al-Haythami, who confined himself to the abridged recension, as he himself explicitly stated in the introduction. And Allah knows best.

Second Note: Al-Hafiz mentioned the hadith with al-Nasa’i’s wording—“al-quʿud” (sitting)—in the biographical notice of its narrator, Nadr ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Sulami, in al-Tahdhib. He then said: “I read in al-Dhahabi’s handwriting: ‘Unknown.’ This is a facile statement: whenever al-Mizzi found that only one narrator had been mentioned for a man, he declared him unknown; yet this was not his invariable practice!”

I say: This is mere empty clatter! It gives the misleading impression that he had another transmitter besides Abu Bakr ibn Abi Hazm and was therefore not unknown. But this is not so, for no one else is mentioned as transmitting from him, as will follow. The most that can be said is that there was disagreement over his name: some referred to him as ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Nadr, thus reversing it. Hence, when al-Hafiz abridged his biographical notice from al-Tahdhib, he had no choice but to say in al-Taqrib: “Unknown.”