“Perhaps it was: ‘He stands on his feet,’ just as Jābir said: ‘He stood leaning upon Bilāl’; but the copyist corrupted it into: ‘upon his mount.’ And Allah knows best.”

One of the strange things about the two annotators mentioned above is that, when they documented this report of Dāwūd, they attributed it to some of those previously mentioned in the source references, including Ibn Mājah under the number cited there, without mentioning that the hadith contains the preserved wording, “his feet.” Nor did they attribute it to Aḥmad with this wording, which supports the point Ibn al-Qayyim had been suggesting, having inferred it from the context of the two narrations before him. It is as though the purpose was to embellish the book with source references rather than critical verification. Allah is the One whose help is sought.

Second: From the foregoing verification, the error of al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar becomes clear in al-Talkhīṣ al-Ḥabīr (2/86), where he attributed Ibn Ḥibbān’s abbreviated anomalous narration to al-Nasāʾī, Ibn Mājah, and Aḥmad. Nor did he point out its anomalous nature or its contradiction of Ibn Khuzaymah’s narration, upon which he relied in al-Fatḥ, and of the narration of Muslim and the other major compilers, which makes clear that he, peace and blessings be upon him, delivered the sermon standing. Al-Shawkānī, in Nayl al-Awṭār (3/260), and al-Ṣanʿānī, in Subul al-Salām (2/79), followed him in all of this by remaining silent about Ibn Ḥibbān’s anomalous narration.

Third: In al-Muhadhdhab, al-Shīrāzī cited this anomalous hadith as evidence that it is permissible to deliver the sermon while seated. Once it is known that the hadith is weak because of its anomalous nature, it cannot be used as evidence—especially since the other hadiths explicitly state that he, peace and blessings be upon him, delivered the sermon standing in the place of prayer. Strangely, al-Nawawī passed over this hadith without documenting it in al-Majmūʿ (5/22–23), contrary to his usual practice. He also agreed with the view that it is permissible, even though this contradicts the evidence he himself cited in refuting the view that a sermon delivered before the Eid prayer may be counted as valid. He said immediately afterward (5/25): “What is correct—indeed, what is right—is that it is not counted, because he, peace and blessings be upon him, said: ‘Pray as you have seen me pray.’”