has preceded: when he traced it through the narration of the two Shaykhs and others, he also traced the routes of Ṭalq ibn Ḥabīb and Nuʿaym al-Mujmir, without clarifying the difference between their narration and that of the two Shaykhs, which Ibn Ḥibbān reported. If this indicates anything, it indicates only inexperience, scant understanding, or lack of attentiveness!

3424 — “A mere little man will soon be appointed over them, and a group of people with shaved napes and white shirts will gather around him; whenever he commands them to do something, they will come promptly.”

Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, and through his route Abū Nuʿaym recorded it in Maʿrifat al-Ṣaḥābah (2/40/2): Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Najdah narrated to us: My father narrated to us: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh narrated to us, from Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jubayr ibn Nufayr, from his father, who said:

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wazāj, a Companion of long standing, related to us that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: … and he mentioned it.

Then your Lord decreed that ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wazāj was appointed governor over one of the cities. A group of local magnates, with shaved napes and white shirts, gathered around him; whenever he commanded them to do something, they came promptly. He would then say, “Allah and His Messenger spoke the truth!”

I say: This is a good Syrian chain of transmission. Al-Haythamī said (6/212):

“Al-Ṭabarānī reported it, and its narrators are reliable.”

I say: All of them have biographical notices in al-Tahdhīb. Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī also reported it through al-Ṭabarānī’s route, as cited in al-Iṣābah, and said:

“His words, ‘they came promptly,’ mean that they hastened their pace.”

The name Wazāj appears this way in al-Maʿrifah and Usd al-Ghābah, with a zāy and a jīm. In al-Iṣābah, however, it is given with a doubled rāʾ followed by an undotted ḥāʾ.