Ahmad 413

Both of its chains of transmission are sahih. The discussion of it was covered earlier at 405, but here Shubah's statement that Abu Abdul-Rahman did not hear from Uthman or from Abdullah, meaning Ibn Masud, appears. However, Bukhari contradicted him, saying in Tarikh Saghir 98, "Hafs bin Umar told me, he said, Hammad bin Zayd told us, from Ataa, from Abu Abdul-Rahman, he said, Umar said to us." Hafiz also quoted something similar in Tahdhib from Tarikh al-Kabir by Bukhari as well. This shows that it was established with Bukhari that he heard from Umar, so his hearing from Uthman is even more likely, especially given his statement, "I fasted eighty Ramadans." He died, according to the more likely view, in the year 85 at the age of 90, so he was already a grown man in the time of Uthman, indeed in the time of Umar, since he would have been born before the Hijrah. It was incumbent upon Hafiz to mention him in the section on the mukhadramin in Isabah, according to his own criterion, but he did not do so.In Sahih Bukhari, in the narration of Shubah, there is an addition where he said, "Abu Abdul-Rahman led the recitation during the rule of Uthman, up until the time of Hajjaj." He said, "And that is what confined me to this seat of mine." Hafiz said in Fath, "Between the beginning of Uthman's caliphate and the end of Hajjaj's governorship there are seventy-two years minus three months, and between the end of Uthman's caliphate and the beginning of Hajjaj's governorship over Iraq there are thirty-eight years." I have not been able to determine precisely when Abu Abdul-Rahman's teaching of recitation began and ended, so Allah knows best the extent of that, though from what I have mentioned one can recognize the outer and inner limits of the period.Hafiz went on at length in Fath 9/66-68 in establishing the preference for the view that he heard from Uthman, and this is the sahih position, the one Bukhari preferred by acting on it in including his hadith in his Sahih.