Ahmad 7415

Its isnad is sahih, despite Yahya's uncertainty about the name of one of its narrators, since certainty has become clear, through sound evidence, that Yahya, the teacher of Ahmad, is Yahya bin Saeed Qattan. And his teacher Yahya, who narrated to him from Zakwan, is Yahya bin Saeed Ansari. The phrase "from Yahya" had dropped out of H, which is a clear error, and we have restored it as a correction from K and M. In the margin of M it says, "The first Yahya is Qattan, and the second is Ansari." Zakwan is Abu Salih Samman, the father of Suhayl, Salih, and Abdullah. He is a well known tabi who narrates directly from Abu Hurairah and other companions, but here he narrated from Abu Hurairah through an intermediary, Ibrahim bin Abdullah or Abdullah bin Ibrahim, this being how Yahya bin Saeed Qattan, the teacher of Ahmad, expressed his uncertainty about it.The wording in the isnad allows for either possibility, that he himself is the one uncertain, or that the one uncertain is his teacher Yahya bin Saeed Ansari, since Imam Ahmad says, "uncertain," meaning Yahya. But we have determined with certainty that the uncertainty comes from Yahya Qattan, because this same hadith was narrated by Muslim in his Sahih, 1:392, through Abdul-Wahhab, who is Ibn Abdul-Majid Thaqafi, who said, "I heard Yahya bin Saeed say, I asked Abu Salih, did you hear Abu Hurairah mention the merit of prayer in the masjid of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ? He said, No, but Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Qaridh told me that he heard Abu Hurairah relate that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said..." and he mentioned the hadith.Abdul-Wahhab bin Abdul-Majid was among the people with the strongest memory for the hadith of Yahya Ansari and the most reliable regarding it, because of his book. Ali bin Madini said, "There is no book in the world about Yahya, meaning Ibn Saeed Ansari, more sahih than the book of Abdul-Wahhab. Every other book about Yahya depends on it." This is why Muslim was decisive about Abdul-Wahhab's narration and relied on it, and this is shown by what he did next, since after it he narrated the version of Yahya Qattan, the one narrated by Ahmad here, but he did not give it in detail, only alluding to it briefly. He said, "Zuhayr bin Harb, Ubaydullah bin Saeed, and Muhammad bin Hatim also narrated it to me, they said, Yahya Qattan narrated to us from Yahya bin Saeed, with this isnad," without mentioning its wording, and without mentioning Yahya Qattan's uncertainty about that tabi who narrated from Abu Hurairah.Among what supports the view that Yahya Qattan did not master his memorization of this hadith from the narration of this Ibn Qaridh about whom he is uncertain is that the hadith will also come later in the Musnad, at 10116, from Yahya, from Muhammad bin Amr, from Abu Salama, from Ibrahim bin Abdullah bin Qaridh, from Abu Hurairah, if Allah wills, from the Prophet ﷺ, who said... and he mentioned it. His saying in this narration "if Allah wills" is not uncertainty about the hadith being attributed to the Prophet, nor uncertainty about it being from Abu Hurairah, in my view, but rather uncertainty about the name Ibrahim bin Abdullah bin Qaridh. This is supported by another piece of evidence that confirms what we have preferred and settles the matter that the narrator is Abdullah bin Ibrahim, since it comes by another route besides these two.Nasai narrated, at 1:113, through Zuhri, from Abu Salama bin Abdul-Rahman and Abu Abdullah Aghar, the freed slave of the Juhaynis, who were both companions of Abu Hurairah, that they heard Abu Hurairah say, "A prayer in the masjid of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is better than a thousand prayers elsewhere, except Masjid al-Haram, for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is the last of the prophets, and his masjid is the last of the masjids."Abu Salama and Abu Abdullah said, "We had no doubt that Abu Hurairah was speaking of a hadith of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and this kept us from asking Abu Hurairah to confirm it, until Abu Hurairah passed away, when we remembered that, and we blamed each other for not having spoken to Abu Hurairah about it, so that he might trace it back to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, if he had heard it from him. While we were in that state, we sat with Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Qaridh, and we mentioned that hadith and what we had failed to do concerning Abu Hurairah's exact wording. Abdullah bin Ibrahim said to us, 'I bear witness that I heard Abu Hurairah say, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, for I am the last of the prophets, and it is the last of the masjids.'"This is a detailed and clear narration, with a sahih isnad, into which no uncertainty enters regarding the name of the narrator from Abu Hurairah, who is Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Qaridh. It shows that Abu Salama bin Abdul-Rahman heard this hadith from Abu Hurairah, together with Abu Abdullah Aghar, and that the two of them were certain the hadith was attributed to the Prophet based on contextual indications from the hearing, but they had not heard him state the attribution in explicit wording. Then uncertainty crept in for them regarding its last phrase, namely, "for I am the last of the prophets, and it is the last of the masjids." So Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Qaridh testified for them that he had heard its attribution stated explicitly by Abu Hurairah.When Yahya Qattan narrated this hadith, from Muhammad bin Amr, from Abu Salama, in narration 10116, the uncertainty he had about the name of Ibn Qaridh came upon him, so he called him Ibrahim bin Abdullah instead of Abdullah bin Ibrahim, then corrected himself for his uncertainty by saying, "if Allah wills."The uncertainty over whether it is Ibrahim bin Abdullah or Abdullah bin Ibrahim was not unique to Yahya Qattan. A detailed discussion of this has already passed in the commentary on hadith 1659. We mentioned there that Ibn Abu Hatim regards them as two different people, and that the author of Tahdhib preferred that they are one person, following Bukhari in Kabir, and Ibn Main in his firm assertion that Zuhri used to make mistakes about this.We considered this quite unlikely, and preferred, based on contextual evidence, that Ibrahim bin Abdullah bin Qaridh is a different person from Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Qaridh, and that the first is the son of the second, though we were hesitant there about what we preferred, because the two sections containing these two biographical entries from Jarh wal-Tadil by Ibn Abu Hatim had not yet been printed. We said there, "It appears that there was a close kinship between Abdul-Rahman bin Awf and Ibn Qaridh, perhaps through the women's side, based on his saying to him when he visited him, 'You are tied to me by kinship.' Such words are said only to someone with a close blood tie."After that, the two sections of Jarh wal-Tadil containing the biographical entries of Ibrahim bin Abdullah and Abdullah bin Ibrahim were printed, and here is the text of the two entries.Ibrahim bin Abdullah bin Qaridh narrated from Umar, Ali, and Abu Hurairah. Umar bin Abdul-Aziz and Saad bin Ibrahim narrated from him, 1/1/109.Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Qaridh Zuhri narrated from Abu Hurairah. Abu Salama bin Abdul-Rahman, Umar bin Abdul-Aziz, Abu Umama bin Sahl, Abu Salih Zakwan, and Abdul-Kareem Abu Umaya narrated from him, 2/2/2.These two entries are clear, and they confirm that they are two different people, and that Abdullah is the son of Ibrahim bin Abdullah. We further prefer that his full lineage runs like this, Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Qaridh, based on what is in Tabaqat Ibn Saad, 5:41–42, in the biography of Ibrahim bin Qaridh bin Abu Qaridh, whose name was Khalid bin Harith bin Ubayd bin Taym bin Amr bin Harith bin Mabdhul bin Harith bin Abd Manat bin Kinana. It mentions that Abu Qaridh entered Makkah... and that he made an alliance with Abd Awf bin Harith bin Zahra, the grandfather of Abdul-Rahman bin Awf. It also appears, at 90/1/3, line 12, regarding the children of Abdul-Rahman bin Awf, "and Abu Bakr, whose mother was Umm Hakeem bint Qaridh bin Khalid bin Ubayd."Likewise, what is in Isaba, page 227, in the biography of Umm Hakeem bint Qaridh bin Khalid, from Banu Layth, allies of Banu Zahra, "She was the wife of Abdul-Rahman bin Awf. Bukhari mentioned her in Sahih as a suspended report..."We also prefer that Abdullah bin Qaridh, from whom his son Ibrahim narrated, in the earlier hadith 1659, that he visited Abdul-Rahman bin Awf while he was ill, and that Abdul-Rahman said to him, "You are tied to me by kinship," is Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Qaridh, the father of Ibrahim bin Abdullah and grandfather of Abdullah bin Ibrahim bin Abdullah, and that this elder Abdullah bin Ibrahim, who visited Abdul-Rahman bin Awf, was the nephew of Umm Hakeem bint Qaridh, the wife of Abdul-Rahman bin Awf. Perhaps we shall succeed, in what lies ahead, Allah willing, in reaching a fuller verification when stronger evidence appears to us, if Allah grants and wills that success.As for the text of the hadith, it is sahih through many routes from Abu Hurairah, attributed to the Prophet. It has already passed with another sahih isnad, at 7252, and we mentioned there that it was narrated by the two Shaykhs and others.