“Whenever you invoke blessings upon the messengers, invoke blessings upon me along with them, for I am a messenger among the messengers.” Ibn Abi ‘Asim narrated it, and its chain is good and sound, though it is mursal.” End quote.

He then cited it in the hadith of Abu Hurayrah and found fault with it on account of Musa ibn ‘Ubaydah al-Rabadhī. Yet he said: “Although he is weak, his hadith may be used as corroborative support.” I say: This indicates that he was inclined to strengthen the hadith. And Allah knows best.

Two observations:

First: The two editors of Tabaqat al-Muhaddithin commented, in the biographical entry for Ibrahim ibn Ayyub al-Farasani (1/190): “Ibn Abi Hatim mentioned him in al-Jarh wa al-Ta‘dil (2/50), saying: ‘I asked my father about him, and he replied: He is acceptable; his standing is that of a truthful narrator.’”

I say: I do not know which edition they mean by the volume and page indicated by those two numbers. In the original edition from which I quote, the subject of this biographical entry is not found in the place indicated by those numbers. Rather, it reads: “Al-Husayn ibn Hafs al-Isfahani... I asked my father about him, and he replied: He is acceptable; his standing is that of a truthful narrator.” This is an astonishing error, the like of which I do not recall ever encountering. What normally happens with some writers or authors is that their eye moves from one biographical entry to another above or below it on the same page, or on the facing page. But for it to move from one volume and page to another volume and page is exceedingly strange.

You have already learned, from what I cited (p. 1127) from Ibn Abi Hatim, that he reported his father as saying: “I do not know him!”

The second observation is that in al-Lisan, immediately before the biographical entry for this Ibrahim ibn Ayyub al-Farasani