- “Indeed, incantations, amulets, and love-charms are associationism.”
Al-Ḥākim recorded it (4/217), saying: Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Zāhid al-Aṣbahānī narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Mahrān narrated to us; ʿUbayd Allah ibn Mūsā narrated to us; Isrāʾīl narrated to us, from Maysarah ibn Ḥabīb, from al-Minhāl ibn ʿAmr, from Qays ibn al-Sakan al-Asadī, who said: ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿūd—may Allah be pleased with him—came in to his wife and saw her wearing an amulet for erysipelas around her neck. He tore it off violently and said, “The household of ʿAbd Allah has no need of associationism.” He then said: Among what we retained from the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—was the following, and he mentioned the hadith.
Al-Ḥākim said, “Its chain of transmission is authentic.” Al-Dhahabī concurred.
I say: It is as they both said, if Allah Most High wills. Its narrators down to ʿUbayd Allah ibn Mūsā are narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ collections, apart from Maysarah ibn Ḥabīb, who is trustworthy. He has been contradicted in both its chain of transmission and its text by someone whose disagreement does not undermine it, as will be explained, if Allah Most High wills.
As for Aḥmad ibn Mahrān, he is Abū Jaʿfar al-Yazdī. Ibn Ḥibbān declared him trustworthy (8/48 and 52), and a number of scholars narrated from him besides this Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Zāhid. He has an entry in Ansāb al-Samʿānī (3/599) and al-Lisān (1/316).
As for Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Zāhid, he has a favourable biographical entry in Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (17/437–438), where he is described as “the shaykh, the imam, the hadith scholar, the exemplar ...” Al-Ḥākim is also reported to have said of him: “He was the hadith scholar of his age; his supplications were answered.”