I said to Ubayy ibn Kaʿb: “Suppose that the wives of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, had died—would he not have been permitted to marry?” He replied: “What would have prevented him from doing so?”—or, as Dāwūd sometimes put it: “What would have made it unlawful for him?” I said: “His statement: ‘No women are lawful for you after this.’” He replied: “Allah had only made a certain category of women lawful for him. Thus He said: ‘O Prophet, We have made lawful for you your wives...’ up to His statement: ‘and any believing woman who gives herself to the Prophet...’ Then he was told: ‘No women are lawful for you after this’ [that is, after this description].”

It was transmitted by al-Dārimī (2/153–154), Ibn Saʿd (8/196), al-Bukhārī in al-Tārīkh (2/1/360), Ibn Jarīr in al-Tafsīr (22/31), ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad in Zawāʾid al-Musnad (5/132), and al-Ḍiyāʾ al-Maqdisī in al-Mukhtārah (nos. 1171 and 1172). Al-Bukhārī cited it in abbreviated form in the biographical entry on this Ziyād, and named his father as ʿAbd Allāh. Ibn Abī Ḥātim likewise named him so, but mentioned no narrator from him other than Muḥammad ibn Abī Mūsā, nor did he offer either a positive assessment or criticism of him. For this reason, al-Ḥusaynī said in Rijāl al-Musnad: “I do not know him.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ endorsed this in al-Taʿjīl.

As for al-Haythamī, after attributing it to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad (7/93), he said:

“I saw in Ibn Ḥibbān’s al-Thiqāt: ‘Ziyād, Abū Yaḥyā al-Anṣārī, narrates from Ibn ʿAbbās.’ If he is [the same man], then he is trustworthy; and it appears that he is. Muḥammad ibn Abī Mūsā was also mentioned by Ibn Ḥibbān in al-Thiqāt.”

I say: Ibn Ḥibbān’s al-Thiqāt contains three men bearing this name and lineage. One of them (5/376) is a Successor who narrates from Ibn ʿAbbās, and Abū Saʿd al-Baqqāl narrates from him.