and he added, “Yahya b. al-Yaman made a mistake in this hadith.” I say: The wording of Ibn Abi Hatim in al-Illal (1/161–162) implies that Ibn al-Yaman was not the only transmitter of this phrasing. He writes: “I asked my father about a report related by Shababa from Ibn Abi Dhib, from Saʿid b. Samʿan, from Abu Hurayra, who said: ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ, when he began the prayer, would spread his fingers wide.’ My father replied: ‘The only person who narrated this wording was Yahya b. al-Yaman, and he was mistaken; it is unsound.’” He states elsewhere (1/98): “What is intended is: ‘When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ stood for prayer he raised his hands in full extension.’ This is how the reliable pupils of Ibn Abi Dhib reported it.” If, however, it is established that Shababa narrated the hadith with the same wording as Ibn al-Yaman, then he provides strong corroboration, for Shababa is a trustworthy hafiz whose reports appear in both Sahihs. The wording of the two men is in fact consistent with—and even clarifies—the version transmitted by the reliable narrators from Ibn Abi Dhib, because *nashr* (unfolding) is the opposite of *tay* (folding) and, in this context, means *madd* (extension); there is therefore no real difference between the terms, as some contemporary investigators have noted. For this reason al-Hakim treated the second version as an explanatory rendering of the first. In another wording preserved by Ahmad, al-Hakim, and also found in al-Nasaʾi, the Prophet ﷺ said: “Three practices that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ observed have been abandoned by the people: he raised his hands fully when he entered the prayer, he pronounced the takbir whenever he bowed and whenever he rose, and he remained silent before the recitation, asking Allah for His bounty.” Al-Sindi comments: “This hadith shows that some sunan were already being neglected in the time of the Companions; therefore reliance must be placed upon the hadith literature. Allah knows best.” Ibn Abi Dhib has yet another chain for the first wording: al-Tayalisi (no. 334) reports from Ibn Abi Dhib, from Muhammad b. ʿAmr b. ʿAtaʾ, from Muhammad b. ʿAbd al-Rahman b. Thawban, from Abu Hurayra.