corroborating reports, especially since those mentioned above also regarded it as strong. Here are their names:
- Imam Ahmad
- al-Tirmidhī
- Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī
- Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim
- Ibn Ḥibbān
- al-Ḥākim
- Ibn Taymiyyah
- al-Dhahabī
- al-ʿAsqalānī
I say: I have dealt at length, following sound scholarly method, with establishing the authenticity of this hadith and mentioning the scholars knowledgeable in this field who declared it authentic, because I saw that some later writers, who have no firmly grounded footing in this discipline, deemed it weak. Among them was the well-known historian Ibn Khaldūn, who said in his History (2/458, Fez edition, with notes by Shakīb Arslān):
“Muʿāwiyah’s rule and its accounts ought to be included among the reigns and accounts of the caliphs, for he comes next after them in merit, integrity, and his status as a Companion. No attention should be paid in this matter to the hadith, ‘The caliphate will last thirty years,’ for it is not authentic. The fact is that Muʿāwiyah is counted among the caliphs....”
The eminent Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabī followed him in this, saying in al-ʿAwāṣim min al-Qawāṣim (p. 201):
“This is an inauthentic hadith!”
Thus, he made an unqualified statement declaring it weak, without mentioning its hidden defect. This is not scholarly method in any respect, especially when, as you have seen, scholars knowledgeable in this field before him had declared it authentic. Our friend, Professor Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Khaṭīb, attempted to rectify the matter by identifying the defect, but he came forth with something which—had it been as he stated—we would have agreed with him in the aforementioned weakening. In his comment on it, he said:
“Because its narrator from Safīnah is Saʿīd ibn Jumḥān [the original has: Jahmān]. They differed concerning him,”