“I arrived in al-Raqqah, and one of my companions said to me, ‘Would you like to meet a man from among the Companions of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him?’ I replied, ‘A fine opportunity!’ So we went to Wabishah. I said to my companion, ‘Let us first look at his appearance.’ He was wearing a close-fitting cap with two earflaps and a dusty-grey hooded cloak of khazz fabric, and was leaning on a staff during his prayer. After we had greeted him with salām, we addressed him, and he said:

“Umm Qays bint Mihsan narrated to me: ‘When the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, became advanced in age ...’”

I say: This is a chain of transmission whose narrators are all trustworthy, apart from ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Wabisi, the father of ‘Abd al-Salam. His father’s name was Sakhr ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman. ‘Abd al-Haqq al-Ishbili said in al-Ahkam (no. 1389, edited by me):

“He was the judge of Aleppo and al-Raqqah, and I know of no one who narrated from him other than his son ‘Abd al-Salam.”

I say: It was for this reason that al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar described him in al-Taqrib as “unknown.”

I say: However, he was not alone in narrating it, for Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al-Zuhri corroborated him: ‘Ubayd Allah ibn Musa narrated to us; Shayban ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman informed us of the same report.

Al-Hakim narrated it (1/264–265), and al-Bayhaqi also recorded it (2/288).

Al-Hakim said: “Authentic according to the criteria of al-Bukhari and Muslim,” and al-Dhahabi agreed with him.

I say: Rather, it meets only Muslim’s criteria, since al-Bukhari did not rely upon Hilal ibn Yisaf in his Sahih; he only cited him in an unconnected narration.

Then I reconsidered and said: It does not meet Muslim’s criteria either, because although Muslim relied upon ‘Ubayd Allah ibn Musa—Abu Muhammad al-‘Absi—he was not among Muslim’s teachers; rather, Muslim narrated from him through an intermediary. Moreover, the narrator from him here, Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al-Zuhri, was not narrated from by Muslim.