5 – Yahya ibn Ja‘dah reported that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “No one should say, ‘I am better than John, son of Zachariah.’ He never contemplated a sin, nor did any woman stir desire in his breast.”

It was recorded by Ibn ‘Asakir (18/92) through Abu al-Muwajjih Muhammad ibn ‘Amr ibn al-Muwajjih ibn Ibrahim ibn Ghazwan: Sadaqah ibn al-Fadl informed us; Ibn ‘Uyaynah informed us, from ‘Amr, from Yahya ibn Ja‘dah, with it. In al-Durr al-Manthur (4/262), al-Suyuti also attributed it to Ahmad in al-Zuhd, but it is not found in the published portion of that work. And Allah knows best.

Its chain is authentic, but it too is mursal. All its narrators are trustworthy and among al-Bukhari’s narrators, apart from Abu al-Muwajjih Muhammad ibn ‘Amr, who was a reliable hadith master profiled in Tadhkirat al-Huffaz and in al-Siyar (13/347–348). In his biography of the narrator from Abu al-Muwajjih—Abu Muhammad al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Halim al-Halimi—al-Sam‘ani mentioned that he narrated the Musnad of Abu al-Muwajjih. This is a useful point not mentioned by al-Dhahabi: namely, that he had a Musnad collection. It is not unlikely that this hadith appears in it, along with other reports of similar meaning.

There is another hadith in Ibn ‘Asakir (18/94), narrated from Mu‘adh ibn Jabal, which I have passed over because it contains Ishaq ibn Bishr, whose kunyah was Abu Hudhayfah and who was accused of lying.

Furthermore, I should add that al-Bazzar also recorded Ibn ‘Abbas’s hadith through the first route, but in a longer form. This text occurs at its end, as no. 2358, and it is also narrated by al-Tabarani (12/218/12938). Al-Bazzar said: “We know of no one who narrated it with this wording except Yusuf, and no one narrated it from him except ‘Ali ibn Zayd alone.” I say: He is weak, as noted above. In al-Durr, al-Suyuti also attributed it to Ibn al-Mundhir,