And this is the version transmitted by Ibn Ḥibbān through Ibn Fuḍayl, from al-ʿAlāʾ ibn al-Musayyab, from him. As you can see, this is mursal, for Ibn al-Jazzār was a Successor who omitted the intermediary narrator between himself and Ibn Masʿūd—a narrator whose mention all the preceding versions agree upon, despite their differences in other respects.

In al-Ṣaḥīḥah, I had feared that the intermediary had been omitted by a copyist, and so I asked there: “I say: His mention has been omitted from Ibn Ḥibbān’s book, and I do not know whether this is how he narrated it, or whether it was omitted by a copyist.” It has now become clear to me that no omission occurred on the copyist’s part, and that this is indeed how Ibn Ḥibbān transmitted it, for it appears likewise in al-Iḥsān—especially since Ibn Fuḍayl was corroborated by al-Naḍr ibn Muḥammad, from al-ʿAlāʾ ibn al-Musayyab, with the same report. Al-Ṭabarānī transmitted it (10/262/10503).

In summary, the narrators differed in their transmission from Yaḥyā ibn al-Jazzār in three ways: first, from him, from Zaynab’s brother’s son; second, from him, from Zaynab’s sister’s son; and third, from him as a mursal report, without mentioning the son. As you have seen, the majority affirm his mention. He is therefore the flaw in the chain of transmission, because he is unknown, as al-Mundhirī stated in al-Targhīb (4/158) and Mukhtaṣar al-Sunan (5/363).

Among the strange things is the statement of al-Ḥāfiẓ in al-Taqrīb: “He appears to be a Companion, but I have not seen him named!” That is what he said. Long ago, I quoted this from him in al-Ṣaḥīḥah, without any objection to it occurring to me; but now I say: