Ahmad 6290

This is something like a criticism of Ubaydullah bin Umar's narration of the preceding hadith, from Nafi, from Ibn Umar, tracing it back to the Prophet. Ahmad reported, from his teacher Yahya bin Saeed Qattan, that he found fault with Ubaydullah bin Umar only in this one hadith. He criticized him for narrating it from Nafi, from Ibn Umar, as a report going back to the Prophet. Ahmad then followed this with his own narration of it from Abdul-Razzaq, from Umari, from Nafi, from Ibn Umar, as a statement stopping at Ibn Umar, not tracing it back to the Prophet.Umari is Abdullah bin Umar bin Hafs bin Asim, the brother of Ubaydullah. He is trustworthy, though there is something to be said about his memory, as we mentioned at 226 and 5655, while his brother Ubaydullah has a stronger memory and is more firmly reliable than him. So the narration of a trustworthy, firmly reliable, rigorous memorizer should not be faulted by the narration of someone of a lesser rank than him. Indeed, the narration of a trustworthy narrator who traces a hadith back to the Prophet should not be faulted even if someone with a stronger memory than him narrates it as stopping at the companion, because tracing it back to the Prophet is an addition from a trustworthy narrator, which must be accepted, unless other evidence establishes its weakness.For this reason, the great memorizers among the leading scholars of hadith paid no attention to this criticism. Bukhari narrated it at 468, and Muslim at 1:379, through the route of Yahya Qattan, from Ubaydullah, tracing it back to the Prophet. Muslim also narrated it at 1:379-380 through the route of Ibn Numayr, from Ubaydullah, tracing it back to the Prophet. These are the two teachers through whom Ahmad narrated it in the Musnad. Bukhari and Muslim also narrated it through the route of Abu Usama, from Ubaydullah, tracing it back to the Prophet. Bukhari then mentioned that Abdullah bin Mubarak followed them in this, and Abdullah likewise narrated it tracing it back to the Prophet.So Ubaydullah was not alone in tracing it back to the Prophet, as Yahya Qattan had supposed. Muslim narrated it at 1:380 through the route of Dahhak bin Uthman, from Nafi, from Ibn Umar, tracing it back to the Prophet, just like Ubaydullah's narration. So this criticism has no basis to stand on.The Hafiz pointed out in Fath al-Bari 2:468 that Daraqutni transmitted this criticism from Qattan, and he responded to it in a manner similar to what we have said. However, he did not mention this hadith in the introduction to Fath al-Bari among the hadiths that Daraqutni or others criticized in Bukhari (see the introduction, p. 353), and this, in my view, is because he did not consider it a criticism worth mentioning.