Salim ibn Umar also corroborated Nafi‘. Al-Bazzar (1486) said:

“I copied from the book of Ahmad ibn al-Faraj: from Muhammad ibn Isma‘il ibn Abi Fudayk, from Ibn Abi Dhi’b, from al-Zuhri, from [Salim, from] his father, that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, forbade men to come upon women at night.”

Then, when he examined the book, he said:

“I found it in my possession in two places: once, ‘from Salim, from his father’; and once, ‘from Salim’” (1).

I say: Ahmad ibn al-Faraj—Abu Utbah al-Himsi—was weak, and he was inconsistent, at times reporting it with a connected chain and at times as a mursal report. The former is more likely correct, for al-Hasan ibn Dawud al-Munkadiri corroborated him in this, saying: “Ibn Abi Fudayk narrated it to us with a connected chain.”

Ibn Adi recorded it in al-Kamil (2/333). This is a strong corroboration, for al-Hafiz said of this al-Hasan in al-Taqrib: “There is no harm in him.”

Thus, the chain of transmission is also established through this route, and praise be to Allah.

Al-Bazzar’s statement, “It is known only through Ibn Ajlan, from Nafi‘,” perhaps means that this is so in terms of its being well known. This does not detract from its authenticity through a route other than that of Ibn Ajlan, for he was corroborated by one who was more retentive and more trustworthy than him: Ubayd Allah al-Umari, as mentioned above.

He was also corroborated by Umar ibn Muhammad—namely, Ibn Zayd ibn Abd Allah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab al-Madani—from Nafi‘, with the wording: