“Aḥmad narrated it, and its chain includes someone I do not recognize!”

He was referring to Ṣadaqah. For he said (1/301):

“Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in al-Awsaṭ and said, ‘Ṣadaqah ibn Abī Sahl alone narrated it.’ I said: I have found no one who mentions him!”

I say: This is one of his oddities, for al-Bukhārī included a biographical notice for him—as his wording has preceded—as did others who came after him, including Ibn Ḥibbān in his al-Thiqāt, which al-Haythamī himself had arranged; yet he forgot! Exalted is He who never forgets.

However, they differentiated between Ṣadaqah ibn Abī Sahl al-Baṣrī—the narrator of this hadith in al-Bukhārī, as mentioned above—and the one immediately preceding him there. He said:

“Ṣadaqah Abū Sahl al-Hanāʾī: he heard from ʿUtbah (1), Ibn Sīrīn, and Abū ʿAmr al-Jamalī—ʿAbd al-Ṣamad said: he is al-Qaṭṭān. Mūsā narrated from him. He is counted among the people of Baṣrah.”

Ibn Abī Ḥātim followed him in making this distinction (2/1/431 and 434/1907), but in both biographical notices he has: “Ṣadaqah Abū Sahl al-Hanāʾī”! Its Yemeni editor, may Allah have mercy on him, examined this and inclined to the view that the correct reading is that found in al-Tārīkh: “Ṣadaqah ibn Abī Sahl,” meaning the Baṣran. In al-Taʿjīl, al-Ḥāfiẓ likewise attributed this to al-Bukhārī’s biographical notice. Ibn Ḥibbān also followed him in distinguishing between them, listing them both among the generation of the Followers of the Followers (6/468). Al-Ḥāfiẓ defended their position and concluded his discussion by saying:

“Al-Ḥusaynī’s treatment implies that they are one and the same; but that is not so, for in the biographical notice for