“The Highest—that is, the Most Blessed.”

I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission meeting the conditions of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. Al-Ḥāfiẓ attributed it (8/137) to al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Ḥibbān and endorsed it, but he presented it as a narration of Abū Burdah from Abū Mūsā. Yet, as you can see, in both works it is narrated by him from ʿĀʾishah, not from Abū Mūsā. It appears, however, that it has an original basis in the hadith of Abū Mūsā, for al-Haythamī cited it in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (9/37) from his hadith, with similar wording:

“No; rather, I ask Allah for the Highest Companion, the Most Blessed: Gabriel …”

Al-Haythamī said:

“Its chain includes Muḥammad ibn Salām al-Jumaḥī, who is trustworthy, though he has some weakness; the rest of its narrators are trustworthy.”

Thus, I do not know whether al-Ḥāfiẓ erred in attributing the hadith of Abū Burdah from Abū Mūsā to al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Ḥibbān, when it is actually found in al-Ṭabarānī—and he himself attributed it to him elsewhere in al-Fatḥ (8/132)—or whether it was likewise found in his copies of al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Ḥibbān. This latter possibility is what I consider unlikely. And Allah knows best.

As for the other route from ʿĀʾishah containing that additional wording, it is recorded by Muslim, Ibn Abī Shaybah, and Aḥmad in similar form. Its wording has already preceded under no. 2775. *

3105—“In the one from which it has not grazed.” He said this to ʿĀʾishah, may Allah be pleased with her.

Al-Bukhārī recorded it (9/120/5077—al-Fatḥ), as did Ibn Ḥibbān in a more complete version that mentions ʿĀʾishah’s anger (4316), through Sulaymān, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, from