—in Basra only after that! There is, moreover, another view: that al-Aswad lived beyond the year 40 AH. This accords with al-Hasan’s explicit statement that he heard from him, since al-Hasan was born around the year 22 AH and could therefore have heard from him, as is apparent. This is the view favoured by Dr. Bashshar in his annotations to al-Hafiz al-Mizzi’s Tahdhib al-Kamal (3/222–223); consult it, for it is beneficial.

I then found a third route in which al-Hasan explicitly states that he narrated directly from al-Aswad, recorded by al-Nasa’i in al-Sunan al-Kubra (5/184/6861), in the hadith prohibiting the killing of offspring. I had previously traced this hadith in the first volume, no. 402, relying for the explicit statement of hearing upon al-Hakim’s version. Now that al-Nasa’i’s al-Sunan al-Kubra has been published, we have found the explicit statement there as well; so it should be added to the aforementioned hadith.

I subsequently appended it to that hadith in the new edition issued by Maktabat al-Ma‘arif in Riyadh.

It appears to me that al-Hafiz al-Mizzi agrees with us in affirming that al-Hasan heard from him. As evidence, when he listed the teachers of al-Hasan al-Basri (6/97), expressly noting—as was his custom—that al-Hasan had not lived to meet some of them, or that this was a matter of dispute, this being part of his precision and careful verification, may Allah reward him well, he said: “...and al-Aswad ibn Sari‘ (S).” Thus, unlike al-Hafiz in his Tahdhib, he neither expressed any doubt about al-Hasan’s hearing from him nor, much less, denied it.

The hadith has another route, narrated by ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakrah: al-Aswad ibn Sari‘ said: “I came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, I have praised my Lord with words of praise and commendation—and you as well.’ He said, ‘Indeed, your Lord loves praise.’ So I began reciting it to him. Then a tall, bald man asked permission to enter, and the Prophet ﷺ said to me, ‘Be silent.’ He entered, spoke for a while, and then left. I recited to him again, but the man returned, so he silenced me. Then he left. He did this twice or—