- As for the hadith of the man who heard the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him: Maʿmar narrates it from Budayl al-ʿUqaylī:
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shuqayq informed me that a man who had heard the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, informed him that, while he was at Wādī al-Qurā and mounted on his horse, a man from Balqayn asked him, “Who are these people?” He replied, “These are those who incurred wrath,” and he indicated the Jews. The man asked, “Then who are these?” He replied, “These are those who went astray,” meaning the Christians.
Al-Ṭabarī and Aḥmad (5/32–33) narrated it through ʿAbd al-Razzāq. In his Tafsīr (1/37), he said: “Maʿmar narrated to us,” with this chain.
I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission, as Shaykh Aḥmad Shākir—may Allah have mercy on him—said, because the unknown identity of a Companion does not detract from it.
I say, however: Budayl al-ʿUqaylī was contradicted. Al-Ṭabarī narrated it from Saʿīd al-Jurayrī and Khālid al-Ḥadhdhāʾ, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shuqayq: that a man asked the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him—and he mentioned a similar report. Both of them narrated it as a mursal report, and this is more sound.
As for Khālid al-Ḥadhdhāʾ’s narration, al-Bayhaqī transmitted it in Shuʿab al-Īmān (4/61/4329). However, he said: from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shuqayq, from a man of Balqayn, from his paternal cousin, who said: “I came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him...” Thus, he connected its chain in one respect, inserting between ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shuqayq and the cousin an unnamed man.
However, the chain leading to him includes Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī—al-Dhuhlī—whom I have not identified.
- As for the hadith of Abū Dharr, al-Suyūṭī mentioned it in al-Durr al-Manthūr (1/16), from the narration of