and Muḥāḍir ibn al-Muwaddiʿ; and both he and al-Nasāʾī, through ʿAbdah ibn Sulaymān—all of them from Hishām, from his father, from Umm Salamah. This is the preserved version, and it is possible that ʿUrwah heard from Umm Salamah, for he lived during more than thirty years of her lifetime and was in the same town as her.” This strongly indicates his support for Imam Muslim’s position that contemporaneity, together with the possibility of meeting, suffices to establish an uninterrupted chain. Although al-Bukhārī’s requirement of establishing that they met, even if only once, is stronger, it is a condition of completeness, not a condition of authenticity, as I have established in more than one place, including what has preceded under hadith no. 2979.

Moreover, ʿAbdah’s wording in al-Nasāʾī (2/37) is: Umm Salamah said, “Messenger of Allah, I have not performed the farewell circumambulation.” The Prophet said: “When the prayer is commenced”—and in another narration, “when the people pray the dawn prayer”—“circumambulate on your camel behind the people.”

Al-Ṭabarānī also transmitted it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (23/266/571 and 408/981), through other chains from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, with the same wording; the other narration is also transmitted by him. Some earlier scholars thought that this hadith differed, both in chain and text, from Mālik’s narration, through his chain from ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, from Zaynab bint Abī Salamah, from Umm Salamah, the Prophet’s wife, who said: “I complained to the Messenger of Allah that I was unwell. He said: ‘Circumambulate behind the people while riding.’” So I circumambulated while the Messenger of Allah was praying beside the House and reciting: “By the Mount, and by a Book inscribed.” Reported by al-Bukhārī and Muslim (1).