Among the Virtues of ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir
- “Abū al-Yaqẓān remains upon the innate disposition and will not abandon it until he dies, or until senility overtakes him.”
Al-Bazzār recorded it in his Musnad (3/252/2686—al-Kashf): Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā narrated to us: ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Mūsā narrated to us: Saʿīd ibn Aws narrated to us from Bilāl ibn Yaḥyā, who said: When ʿUthmān, may Allah be pleased with him, was killed, Ḥudhayfah was approached and told, “O Abū ʿAbd Allāh, this man has been killed, and the people have differed. What should we say?” He replied, “Support me.” So they supported him against a man’s chest, whereupon he said: “I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say…” and he then cited it. He said: “We do not know of it being narrated from Ḥudhayfah except through this chain of transmission.”
I say: Its chain of transmission is authentic; all its narrators are trustworthy. Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā is al-Awdī, Abū Jaʿfar al-Kūfī, one of al-Nasāʾī’s trustworthy shaykhs. He was corroborated, for Ibn Saʿd said in al-Ṭabaqāt (3/262–263)—as did Ibn ʿAsākir in al-Tārīkh (12/652), on his authority: “ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Mūsā and al-Faḍl ibn Dukayn informed us; they said: Saʿīd ibn Aws al-ʿAbsī informed us,” with the same report, except that it reads: “or until senility makes him forget it.”
Al-Ṭabarānī also recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ (1/163/3043), and Ibn ʿAdī in al-Kāmil (5/205), through two other chains from Saʿīd ibn Aws, in abridged form; except that Ibn ʿAdī said: “Saʿd.”
This is the correct reading, in agreement with the earlier and later biographical works, such as al-Bukhārī’s al-Tārīkh, al-Jarḥ wa-al-Taʿdīl, Ibn Ḥibbān’s al-Thiqāt, and others, as well as Tahdhīb al-Kamāl and its derivative works.