—“His uprightness has not been established. Ibn al-Qattan simply followed Ibn Hazm in branding as majhul (unknown) anyone whose reliability they had not investigated. Yet this transmitter is a well-known Basran; he is the son of the famous qadi Ubayd Allah.” Al-Bayhaqi objected to the chain on the ground that it relies on wijada (taking a report from a written source without direct audition). This, however, is not a decisive defect, for al-Shafi‘i and other scholars deemed wijada admissible, as is stated in the manuals of hadith methodology; I have discussed the point in my book Naqd al-Taj, no. 84. Accordingly, when Ibn Hajar cited the tradition in al-Diraya, p. 68, the only flaw he mentioned was: “It contains an unidentified narrator,” meaning Ahmad b. Ubayd Allah. Even so, his earlier remarks suggest that he did not fully accept the sweeping verdict of anonymity issued by Ibn al-Qattan and others. Allah knows best. The hadith has an additional corroborating route: al-Bayhaqi (2/10–11) transmitted it through Muhammad b. Ubayd Allah al-Arzami from Ataʾ with similar wording. Al-Arzami, however, is weak. Further supporting narrations exist: • Al-Tirmidhi (2/176), Ibn Majah (1/319), al-Daraqutni, Abu Dawud al-Tayalisi (p. 156), and—via two routes—al-Bayhaqi report it from Asim b. Ubayd Allah, from Abd Allah b. Amir b. Rabi‘a, from his father. All the transmitters in al-Tayalisi’s chain are also found in Muslim except this Asim, who is weak because of poor memory; in such cases his reports are acceptable only for corroboration. • Al-Tabarani in al-Awsat narrates it from Mu‘adh b. Jabal with wording similar to the hadith of Jabir. Al-Haythami (2/15) notes: “In its chain is Abu Abla, the father of Ibrahim; Ibn Hibban counted him among the trustworthy. His name is Shamir b. Yaqzan.” • Ibn Mardawayh, in his Tafsir, also reports it through al-Kalbi, from Abu Salih, from Ibn Abbas, with wording akin to the narration of Amir b. Rabi‘a.