I asked ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān(1): Which of the narrations concerning this, on the authority of Abū Isḥāq, is the most sound? And he did not decide anything regarding it.

And I asked Muḥammad(2) about this, and he did not decide anything regarding it, and it was as if he considered the ḥadīth of Zuhayr, on the authority of Abū Isḥāq, on the authority of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Aswad, on the authority of his father, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh, to be more likely, and he placed it in the book "al-Jāmiʿ".(3)

And the most sound thing in this, in my view, is the ḥadīth of Isrāʾīl and Qays, on the authority of Abū Isḥāq, on the authority of Abū ʿUbaydah, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh, because Isrāʾīl is more reliable and more precise in the ḥadīth of Abū Isḥāq than these others, and Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ followed him in that.

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= Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd would not be satisfied that this is among what Abū Isḥāq did not practice tadlīs in, he said: because Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd would not be satisfied to take from Zuhayr what is not heard by his shaykh, and it is as if he knew this by induction from the condition of Yaḥyā, and Allāh knows best.

And when that is established, there remains no room for the claim of defect against it, because the two narrations of Isrāʾīl and Zuhayr have no contradiction between them, except that the narration of Zuhayr is more preponderant, because it negated the disorder from the narration of Isrāʾīl, and the narration of Isrāʾīl did not negate that, so the narration of Zuhayr became preponderant. And as for the follow-up of Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ to the narration of Isrāʾīl, indeed Sharīk the judge followed Zuhayr, and Sharīk is more reliable than Qays. Moreover, what we have refined does not reject anything from either of the two chains, except that it clarifies the strength of the chain of Zuhayr, its continuity, and its firmness in soundness, and the remoteness of its being declared defective, and by it the penetration of al-Bukhārī's opinion and the sharpness of his mind become apparent, and Allāh knows best. And al-Bukhārī has indeed cited from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah what bears witness to the soundness of the ḥadīth of Ibn Masʿūd, so it gained additional strength by that.

We say: The speech of al-Ḥāfiẓ in its entirety is taken from "Sharḥ al-Tirmidhī" of Ibn Sayyid al-Nās with some abridgment.

(1) He is the ḥāfiẓ Abū Muḥammad al-Dārimī, author of "al-Sunan," who died in the year 255 AH.
(2) He is the Imām, the mountain of memorization, Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī, who died in the year 256 AH.
(3) That is: "al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaḥīḥ," and it is in it under number (156).