All its other narrators are reliable transmitters cited by Muslim.

Nevertheless, the hadith is authentic, for it has many corroborating reports from Ali, Amr ibn Utbah, and others. They have been documented in al-Sahihah (314), al-Irwa’ (2/237), and Sahih Abi Dawud (1158). I have cited it through the route mentioned above only in order to identify its Ansari Companion. I therefore say:

The sources mentioned differ over the vocalization of his kunya. In Ahmad, his son’s work, al-Bukhari, and al-Tabarani, it appears, as previously stated, as Abu Bashir.

In Abu Ya‘la, it is Abu Hubayrah!

As for al-Bazzar, I do not know what appears in his work, since its original is not available to me; indeed, I have not even come across it (1). Rather, my basis for attributing it to him is the printed edition of Mu’assasat al-Risalah. I do not place much trust in it, because of its inadequate verification and the many errors of its annotator. One such error concerns this kunya, which appears there in a form contrary to what has preceded: Abu al-Yasr. Shaykh al-A‘zami reportedly annotated it as follows:

“With a fathah on the ya and an unpointed sin. I have drawn attention to this because the original has the sin without a vowel.”

That is what he said! But I think that the Shaykh—or the annotator—did not read the original properly, and that it may have read Abu al-Nasr, with the sin left unpointed. It also appears thus in Majma‘ al-Zawa’id (2/226), with an additional dot below while the sin remains unpointed. This seems likelier to me: it is Abu al-Bashar—that is, with the sin dotted—following the practice of some copyists in earlier times, who would leave a letter that normally takes dots unpointed, relying on