al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, to which reference will be made shortly, if Allah Most High wills.
As for the corroborating report mentioned, it is found in Aḥmad’s Musnad. He said (2/229): Hushaym narrated to us: al-ʿAwwām ibn Ḥawshab informed us, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Sāʾib, from Abū Hurayrah, attributing it to the Prophet, with the same wording.
This is a chain whose apparent soundness is evident: all its narrators are trustworthy men whose narrations Muslim transmitted. Yet it has a hidden defect. For Aḥmad also said (2/506): Yazīd narrated to us: al-ʿAwwām informed us: ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Sāʾib related to me, from a man among the Anṣār, from Abū Hurayrah …
I say: Hushaym and Yazīd—who is Ibn Hārūn—differed; both are trustworthy, precise narrators whose reports are found in the two Ṣaḥīḥs. Yazīd inserted the Anṣārī man between ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Sāʾib, who was al-Kindī, and Abū Hurayrah. Hence, it says in al-Kindī’s biographical entry in al-Tahdhīb: “He narrated from Abū Hurayrah, or from a man from him.”
This is stated with uncertainty. If we recall the principle that “the addition made by a trustworthy narrator is accepted,” Yazīd’s narration is the weightier one. And Allah knows best.
However, this Anṣārī man was a Successor, so he may be counted as a corroborating witness and supporting transmission for the previously mentioned narration of Isḥāq, the client of Zā’idah, recorded by Muslim and others.
Yet this may be complicated by the fact that a group of trustworthy narrators related it from Abū Hurayrah without the phrase, “and from one Ramadan to the next.” It is useful, therefore, to document their routes; so I say:
- ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yaʿqūb, the client of al-Ḥuraqah, narrated it from Abū Hurayrah with the same wording.
Muslim, Abū ʿAwānah (2/22), al-Tirmidhī (214)—who graded it authentic—Ibn Khuzaymah (1/162/314 and 3/158/1814), Ibn Ḥibbān (4/65/2409), and al-Baghawī in Sharḥ