the route of Aban ibn Sufyan, except that he said, “Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Talhah” in place of “Ibrahim ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman, the client of the family of Talhah.”
I say: I have not identified this man. Thus, I do not know the basis for the commentator on Fadaʾil saying, “Its chain of transmission is authentic.” The narrator before him was a Successor among Muslim’s narrators; he died in 110 AH, and Hushaym did not live to meet him. Hushaym died in 183 AH and practised concealment of narrators in transmission.
It has another chain through Abu Hamzah, ʿImran ibn Abi ʿAtaʾ, and Safwan ibn ʿAmr corroborated him, saying: “Abu Hamzah, the client of Abu Maryam al-Ghassani, narrated to me: Talhah was ...” Al-Dulabi included it in al-Kuna (1/2577). It too is mursal, for this Abu Hamzah was a trustworthy Successor.
- Page 948, under hadith (2902—margin):
I then saw it in Jamiʿ al-Masanid by the hadith master Ibn Kathir, who cited it (1/196/173) exclusively through the route of ʿAli ibn ʿAyyash. Its commentator, Dr. Qalʿaji, attributed it to Ahmad’s Musnad (3:417)—giving only the volume and page number! By Allah, I do not know whether this was one of his errors or an instance of claiming knowledge he does not possess, as his fellow townsman Shaykh al-Sabuni does. For nothing is found at the cited location in the Musnad except the hadith concerning stepping over people’s necks, which is mentioned below (p. 951); Ibn Kathir himself cited it immediately before this.
- Page 1047, under hadith (2934):
His wording in the hadith concerning the Dajjal is: “Indeed, he makes the sky rain and the earth grow.” This is how it appears in the Musannaf of Ibn Abi Shaybah and in al-Durr al-Manthur (5/355), where it is attributed to him: “... and the earth grows,” with the negative particle omitted. In the Musnad and al-Sunnah, however, it reads: “... and the trees do not grow,” thus retaining the negative particle and mentioning “the trees” in place of “the earth.” The same appears in Kanz al-ʿUmmal (14/605), in the recension of al-Baghawi.