whoever refuses, let him drink from the pools of Yemen, for Allah has taken responsibility for Syria and its people.”

Abū ʿAlqamah said: I heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jubayr say:

“The Companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, recognized the description in this hadith as applying to Juzʾ ibn Suhayl al-Sulamī. At that time, he was in charge of the non-Arabs. Whenever they went to the mosque, they would look at him and at the non-Arabs standing around him, and they were astonished at the Messenger of Allah’s description of him and of them.”

Al-Ṭaḥāwī also transmitted it in Mushkil al-Athar (2/35–36), al-Ṭabarānī in Musnad al-Shamiyyin (3/395/2540), Abū Nuʿaym in al-Hilyah (2/3–4), in abridged form, and Ibn ʿAsākir in Tarikh Dimashq (1/73–75). Ibn ʿAsākir and al-Ṭaḥāwī added:

“He was a short, dark-complexioned man. As they passed by, those non-Arabs would be standing, and he would command them to do something and they would do it. They would then marvel at this hadith!”

I say: Its chain of transmission is authentic, and all its narrators are trustworthy. Although Abū Ḥātim said of Naṣr ibn ʿAlqamah, “He did not meet Jubayr ibn Nufayr,” he stated at the end of the hadith that the intermediary between himself and Jubayr was Jubayr’s son, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jubayr. Thus, the chain is uninterrupted and authentic, Allah willing.

As for al-Haythamī, he said (6/212):

“Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it through two chains. The narrators of one of them are the narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ, apart from Naṣr ibn ʿAlqamah, who is trustworthy.”

As for al-Ḥāfiẓ’s statement about him in al-Taqrib: “Acceptable”!