Ahmad 5998

Its isnad is sahih. Haywa is Ibn Shurayh, whose reliability was established earlier at 2899. Abu Uthman is Walid bin Abu Walid, the freedman of Abdullah bin Umar, whose biography was detailed earlier at 5721, and we will add further detail to it later.Haythami mentioned the hadith in Majma al-Zawaid 7:174 and said, "Ahmad narrated it, and it contains Abu Uthman Abbas bin Fadl Basri, who is matruk (discarded)." It is indeed true that Abbas bin Fadl Basri Azraq, known as Abu Uthman, is matruk. Ibn Main declared him extremely daif, even saying, "A wicked liar." Bukhari said in Kabir 5/1/4-6, "His hadith has become worthless." Ibn Abu Hatim said in Jarh wa Tadil 3:2131, "I heard my father say, 'His hadith has become worthless.'" Abu Zura abandoned his hadith and did not read it to him.However, he is not the Abu Uthman who narrated this hadith. Hafiz pointed to this hadith in Fath al-Bari 12:376-377, while explaining Bukhari's narration of the previous hadith in Musnad 5711, saying, "Ahmad narrated it through the route of Haywa, from Abu Uthman Walid bin Abu Walid Madani, from Abdullah bin Dinar," with it, and more complete than it, its wording being, "The greatest of fabrications is for a man to claim descent from someone other than his father, and the greatest of fabrications is for a man to claim his eyes saw what they did not see," and he mentioned a third. Its chain is sahih.Then Hafiz added further detail and clarification in Tajil 503-504, saying, "Abu Uthman, from Abdullah bin Dinar, and from him Haywa." I say (the speaker being Hafiz), Husayni did not mention him, and he did well not to, for he is known both by name and by circumstance. His name appears identified within the Musnad itself, where Ahmad said, 'Abu Abdul-Rahman narrated to us (he is Abdullah bin Yazid), Haywa narrated to us (he is Ibn Shurayh), Abu Uthman Walid narrated to us, from Abdullah bin Dinar,' and he then related the hadith of Ibn Umar concerning filial devotion, meaning hadith 5721."So Walid is Ibn Abu Walid Madani, and the name of Abu Walid is Uthman Madani. Muslim narrated the aforementioned hadith through the route of Saeed bin Abu Ayub, from Walid bin Abu Walid, with it, and it contains a story concerning Ibn Umar (Sahih Muslim 2:277, as we noted in the commentary on 5721). Tirmidhi also narrated it through the route of Ibn Mubarak, from Haywa bin Shurayh, likewise (Tirmidhi 117).Our teacher Haythami erred regarding this Abu Uthman, for he said in Majma al-Zawaid 7:174, after narrating the hadith of Ibn Umar as a raised report, "The greatest of fabrications" (meaning this hadith, 5998), "Ahmad narrated it, and it contains Abu Uthman Abbas bin Fadl Ansari, who is matruk." That is the end of his statement. He offered no evidence for this claim. Haywa is older than Abbas, and although Abbas was known by the kunya Abu Uthman, he never heard from Abdullah bin Dinar nor did he ever meet him.It is astonishing that Haythami overlooked the naming of Abu Uthman as Walid within the Musnad itself, and that he asserted with certainty that he was Abbas. However, his excuse is that the identification only occurred in the other hadith narrated by Muslim, not in this hadith, so it seems he assumed it could be someone else. This is a truly remarkable and valuable piece of research by Hafiz.See also 5711 and 5740, and see also 855 in the Musnad of Ali.As for his wording "what they did not see," it is written this way in [manuscripts] K and M, while in H it appears as "the two did not see," which is a variant reading noted between the lines in K.