the help of Allah and the victory.” In my view, nothing has been omitted from it; rather, it is an abridgement made by al-Bukhari himself. This is his customary practice—well known to the eminent Shaykh—in many of the hadiths in this work which he mentions under certain biographical entries. At times, the abridgement may be so extreme that it resembles a riddle, as in his entry on Umar ibn Miskin:

“He narrates from Nafi, from Ibn Umar, concerning funerals.”

Yet it is easy for a researcher—or a hadith master—to identify the hadith being indicated. Success is granted by Allah alone.

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3370—“It is disbelief for a man to claim a lineage he does not know, or to deny it, however slight it may be.”

Ibn Majah (2/916/2744), al-Tabarani in al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (8/446/7915), and al-Saghir (p. 222, Hind edition) narrated it through two routes from Yahya ibn Sa'id, who said: Amr ibn Shu'ayb narrated to me from his father, from his grandfather, that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: ... and he mentioned it.

I say: Its chain of transmission is good. Al-Tabarani’s statement regarding it—“No one narrated it from Yahya ibn Sa'id except Abu Damrah Anas ibn Iyad”—is according to the extent of his knowledge; otherwise, Ibn Majah also narrated it through Sulayman ibn Bilal, from Yahya. This is found in some copies of Ibn Majah but not others, as the hadith master noted in al-Nukat al-Ziraf (6/341–342). For this reason, al-Mundhiri did not attribute it to Ibn Majah in al-Targhib; rather, he said (3/88):

“Ahmad and al-Tabarani in al-Saghir narrated it.”

He also overlooked attributing it to al-Awsat.

As for Ahmad, he narrated it through another route from Amr ibn Shu'ayb, saying (2/215):