and to his son as a report attributed to the Companion; thus each accurately retained what he had heard. The hadith is therefore established both as attributed to the Prophet and as attributed to the Companion, and attribution to the Prophet is an additional detail, so it is the relied-upon version. In my view, this is preferable to al-Mundhiri’s statement in al-Targhib (3/212):

“Ahmad and al-Bayhaqi narrated it as attributed to the Prophet in this manner, while ‘Abdullah narrated it in his additions as attributed to Abu al-Darda’. Its chain of transmission is more authentic, and it is more likely.”

This is what he said, though it is rather strange, for the chain of transmission of the report attributed to the Companion is identical to that of the report attributed to the Prophet; the only disagreement is between Ahmad and his son. If one must give preference to one of their two narrations, there is no doubt that Ahmad’s narration is weightier, since he had the stronger memory, as mentioned above. Yet I see no justification for doing so when reconciliation is possible in the manner I have explained. It is also remarkable that al-Manawi related from al-Haythami the same preference expressed by al-Mundhiri, as though he had merely followed him in that. Allah knows best.

I then found a corroborating narration for Ahmad’s report, which al-Bayhaqi transmitted in al-Shu‘ab (2/95/2) through the route of ‘Abbas ibn Muhammad al-Duri: al-Haytham ibn Kharijah narrated it to us, attributing it to the Prophet.

515 — “Whoever lives to see his parents, or one of them, and thereafter enters the Fire—may Allah drive him far away and destroy him.”

Imam Ahmad (4/344, 5/29) narrated it from Shu‘bah, from Qatadah, who said: I heard Zurarah ibn Awfa narrate from Ubayy ibn Malik, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, that he said this.

Al-Tayalisi (1321) also narrated it: Shu‘bah narrated it to us through the same chain, but without the words, “and destroy him.”

I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy and are among the narrators of al-Bukhari and Muslim, apart from Ubayy ibn Malik, who was a Companion counted among the people of Basra. Scholars differed over his name, offering several views; al-Hafiz gave preference to the name found in this narration of Qatadah. Ibn Jad‘an, however, differed from him. Thus, al-Tayalisi also narrated (1322): Shu‘bah narrated to us from ‘Ali ibn Zayd that Zurarah narrated from a man of his people called Malik, or Abu Malik, or Ibn Malik, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him; then he cited it with an additional wording, though not the addition mentioned above.