Ahmad 4609

Its isnad is sahih. Tirmidhi related it (3:190) from Hannad, from Abda, from Saeed bin Abu Aruba, from Mamar, with his isnad, and Ibn Majah related it (1:308) from Yahya bin Hakeem, from Muhammad bin Jafar, from Mamar.Tirmidhi said, "This is how Mamar related it from Zuhri, from Salim, from his father. I heard Muhammad bin Ismail [meaning Bukhari] say, 'This hadith is not well preserved. The correct version is what Shuayb bin Abu Hamza and others related from Zuhri, who said, I was told, on the authority of Muhammad bin Suwayd Thaqafi, that Ghaylan bin Salama accepted Islam while he had ten wives.'"Muhammad [that is, Bukhari] said, "Rather, the hadith of Zuhri, from Salim, from his father, is that a man from Thaqif divorced his wives, and Umar said to him, 'You will take back your wives, or I will stone your grave just as the grave of Abu Righal was stoned.'"Thus Bukhari faulted the hadith with a flaw that is not damaging, for Shuayb's narration of it from Zuhri, "I was told, on the authority of Muhammad bin Suwayd," does not rule out that Zuhri also had it connected through Salim from Ibn Umar. So these are two separate narrations, one of them daif due to the anonymity of one of its narrators, and the other sahih due to its being connected and the reliability of its narrators.As for Zuhri having related from Salim, from his father, that a man from Thaqif divorced his wives, and so on, this is a different story, and it does not rule out that Zuhri related both of them. This is what is established, for the two stories will come together at 4631, from Ibn Ulaya and Muhammad bin Jafar, from Mamar, from Zuhri, from Salim, from his father. So they are two sahih, established stories.This hadith that is here was related by Hakim (2:192) with three chains from Saeed bin Abu Aruba, from Mamar. Then he said, "This is how the earlier companions of Saeed related it, Yazid bin Zuray, Ismail bin Ulaya, and Ghundar [that is, Muhammad bin Jafar], and the leading masters of hadith among the people of Basra."Imam Muslim bin Hajjaj ruled that this hadith is among those in which Mamar erred while in Basra, so if a trustworthy narrator outside the Basrans related it from him, we would rule it sahih. I found that Sufyan Thawri, Abdul-Rahman bin Muhammad Muharibi, and Isa bin Yunus, all three of them Kufans, related it from Mamar, from Zuhri, from Salim, from his father.Then Hakim traced with his isnad the narration of Muharibi and the narration of Isa bin Yunus from Mamar. Then he said, "This is also how I found the hadith among the people of Yamama, from Mamar," and he traced it with his isnad to Yahya bin Abu Kathir, from Mamar. Then he said, "This is also how I found the hadith among the Khurasani imams, from Mamar," and he traced it with his isnad to Fadl bin Musa, from Mamar.The hadith masters spoke at length about this hadith and its faulting, among them Ibn Hajar in Talkhis (300-301). Among what he said in it, "A useful note. Nasai said, Abu Yazid Amr bin Yazid Jarmi informed us, Sayf bin Abdullah informed us, from Sarrar bin Mujashir, from Ayub, from Nafi and Salim, from Ibn Umar, that Ghaylan bin Salama Thaqafi accepted Islam while he had ten wives," the hadith, and in it, "So he accepted Islam and they accepted Islam with him," and in it, "Then when it was the time of Umar, he divorced them, and Umar said to him, 'Take them back.'" The narrators of its isnad are trustworthy. Daraqutni related it via this same route as well.Ibn Qattan used it as evidence for the soundness of Mamar's hadith. Ibn Qattan said, "I only raised their disagreement over Mamar's hadith because the companions of Zuhri themselves differed. Malik and a group related from him, 'It reached me,' and he mentioned it. Yunus related from him, 'from Uthman bin Muhammad bin Abu Suwayd.' It is also said, from Yunus from him, 'from Uthman bin Muhammad bin Suwayd.' It is also said, from Yunus from him, 'It reached me, from Uthman bin Abu Suwayd.' Shuayb related from him, 'from Muhammad bin Suwayd.' Among them is one who related from Zuhri saying, 'Ghaylan accepted Islam,' without mentioning any intermediary." He [meaning Ibn Qattan] said, "So they found it unlikely that Zuhri would have had it, from Salim, from Ibn Umar, going back to the Prophet, and yet narrate it through those weak channels. This, to me, is not unlikely. And Allah knows best."I [the speaker being Ibn Hajar] say, what strengthens Ibn Qattan's view is that Imam Ahmad related it in his Musnad from Ibn Ulaya and Muhammad bin Jafar together, from Mamar, with both hadiths together, his hadith going back to the Prophet and his hadith stopping at Umar.Then the hadith master mentioned the coming hadith 4631, and the hadith of Sarrar bin Mujashir, from Ayub, from Nafi and Salim, which the hadith master indicated was related by Nasai and Daraqutni. I did not find it in Sunan Nasai. It appears to be in Sunan al-Kubra, and it is found in Sunan Daraqutni (404), detailed and lengthy, in a manner similar to the coming hadith 4631.As for the hadith that the hadith master mentioned here in Bulugh Maram, he said, "Ahmad and Tirmidhi related it, and Ibn Hibban and Hakim graded it sahih, while Bukhari and Abu Zura faulted it."Its commentator, the eminent scholar Ibn Amir Sanani, said in Subul Salam (3:180), "The author spoke at length in Talkhis about this hadith, but the words of Ibn Kathir in Irshad are more concise and give a better benefit." After presenting it, he said, "The two imams Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Idris Shafii and Ahmad bin Hanbal, and Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah, related it, and the narrators of this isnad meet the standard of the two Shaykhs, except that Tirmidhi says," and he quoted the same words of Tirmidhi that we have already quoted.Ibn Kathir said, "I say, Imam Ahmad combined, in his narration of this hadith, these two hadiths with this same isnad" [meaning hadith 4631], "so what Bukhari mentioned is not a valid objection." He then traced Nasai's narration of it through trustworthy narrators, though what Athram related from Ahmad, that he said, "This hadith is not sahih," does pose an objection to Ibn Kathir's view.But this too is not a valid fault, for the hadith is established through sahih routes, and perhaps the route through which Nasai and Daraqutni related it did not reach Imam Ahmad. As for us, since it has reached us, it removes any suspicion of error and mistake from Mamar. Praise be to Allah for His guidance.Ghaylan bin Salama Thaqafi was among the nobles and dignitaries of Thaqif. He accepted Islam, along with his children, after the conquest of Taif. Marzubani said in Mujam Shuara, "A noble poet, one of the arbiters of Qays in the pre-Islamic era." He has a biography in Tabaqat Ibn Saad (5:371), and another, fuller one in Isaba (5:192-195), where the hadith master mentioned this hadith and many of its routes and its faulting.