Ahmad 7480

Its chain of transmission is sahih, despite disagreement among its transmitters over the name of the successor, which does no harm, Allah willing, as will become clear, regarding Muhammad bin Amr bin Alqama Laythi.Safwan bin Abu Yazid is a trustworthy successor. Ibn Hibban mentioned him in Ath-Thiqat, p. 500. Some narrators say Safwan bin Yazid, but it appears this is a mistake. Others say Safwan bin Sulaym, and it appears his father's name was Sulaym and his kunya was Abu Yazid, and he is different from Safwan bin Sulaym from whom Malik, Layth, and others narrate, and for whom the authors of the six books recorded narrations, even though he was not of that same generation.This Ibn Abu Yazid was given a biographical entry by Bukhari in Al-Kabir 2/2/308, without mentioning any criticism of him, and he pointed to most of the routes of this hadith, as we will mention in the takhrij, Allah willing. Ibn Abu Hatim also gave him an entry in Al-Jarh wal-Tadil 2/1/421, and indicated that Ibn Lahia erred in it, naming him Safwan bin Abu Ala, when he is actually Safwan bin Abu Yazid.Indeed, Ibn Hajar mentioned in Al-Isabah 3:248, 263 that Ibn Lahia's error went further, in that he made him a companion. He narrated this hadith from Khalid bin Abu Imran, from Safwan bin Abu Ala, that he heard the Prophet ﷺ... In the first place he quoted from Ibn Abu Hatim that he said, "This is from the confusion of Ibn Lahia!" And in both places he pointed to many of the routes of this hadith.Ibn Hajar persisted in his error by mentioning him in the fourth section, which is the section containing entries for those whom some narrators mistakenly place among the companions, in Al-Isabah [3:263], and there he stated explicitly that this was an error of Ibn Lahia, and in this he was correct and did well, and he pointed to some of the routes of this hadith. But what is surprising is that he also mentions him in the first section [3:248], which is the section containing companions whose companionship is firmly established, and there he did not point out Ibn Lahia's error, but instead excused his mention of him there with an excuse that cannot excuse someone of his standing, saying, "I mentioned him here as a possibility." May Allah have mercy on him and on us, and forgive us and him.Husayn bin Lajlaj is a trustworthy successor, and the more likely view is that his name was Qaqa bin Lajlaj. He is among those whose name is disputed among the narrators. It is also said, Abu Ala bin Lajlaj. Indeed, in Al-Mustadrak it occurs as "from Abu Lajlaj," and perhaps this is an error by the copyists, and that the correct reading is "from Ibn Lajlaj." The two great imams, Yahya bin Main and Bukhari, favored the view that he was Qaqa. Ibn Abu Hatim gave him an entry in Al-Jarh wal-Tadil 1/2/195 under the name Husayn, without saying anything beyond mentioning his narration. Then he gave him an entry in 2/3/136 under the name Qaqa, and said, "Muhammad bin Amr said, from Husayn bin Lajlaj," pointing to the narration found here and to similar narrations from Muhammad bin Amr. He then narrated from Ibn Main that he said, "Qaqa is more correct."As for Bukhari, he did not give him an entry under the name Husayn, but confined his entry to the name Qaqa 4/1/188, without pointing to the disagreement over his name, being content to point to it in the entry for Safwan bin Abu Yazid 2/2/308 when indicating the routes of the hadith, as we mentioned before and as we will mention in the takhrij, Allah willing. Ibn Hibban mentioned him in Ath-Thiqat under both entries, p. 165, 313, without favoring one over the other, but he added in the second that he was Qahtani, and that his kunya was Abu Ala.The hadith was narrated by Nasai 2:55-56 from Shuayb bin Yusuf, who is trustworthy and reliable, from Yazid bin Harun, with this chain. It will also come at 9691 from Muhammad bin Ubayd, from Muhammad bin Amr, with this chain, matching the narration of Yazid bin Harun from Muhammad bin Amr. Bukhari likewise narrated it, in the entry for Safwan, from Saeed bin Mansur, from Abbad bin Abbad, from Muhammad bin Amr, but he did not mention the wording of the hadith, being content merely to point to it, as is his custom in such cases, since his purpose is to clarify the differences among the chains.Nasai likewise narrated it 2:55 from Amr bin Ali Fallas, from Arara bin Barind and Ibn Abu Adi, both from Muhammad bin Amr, with it. Bukhari also narrated it, in the entry for Safwan, again merely pointing to it, from Ibn Abu Shayba, from Abdah bin Sulayman Kullabi, from Muhammad bin Amr, from Safwan bin Sulaym, from Husayn. From this chain and others it is favored that Safwan's father's name was Sulaym, and his kunya was Abu Yazid. These are the narrators who named the successor Husayn bin Lajlaj, all of them narrating it through Muhammad bin Amr bin Alqama.However, some of the narrators from Muhammad bin Amr differed on this, naming the successor Qaqa. They were followed in this by those who narrated it from Suhayl bin Abu Salih, from Safwan, from Qaqa bin Lajlaj. Given this, the narration of those who narrated it from Suhayl, in agreement with some of those who narrated it from Muhammad bin Amr, under the name Qaqa, is more likely to be correct.Bukhari narrated it, again merely pointing to it, in the entry for Safwan, from Musa bin Ismail, from Wahib, from Suhayl bin Abu Salih, from Safwan bin Abu Yazid, from Qaqa bin Lajlaj. Nasai likewise narrated it 2:55 from Ishaq bin Ibrahim, from Jareer, from Suhayl, with it. Hakim likewise narrated it in Al-Mustadrak 2:72, through the route of Yusuf bin Musa, from Jareer. But in Hakim's narration it reads "from Abu Lajlaj," and I consider this an old error by the copyists, the correct reading being "from Ibn Lajlaj." It is possible that Hakim saw the disagreement over his name, whether it was Husayn or Qaqa, and so extricated himself from this by omitting the given name and being content with the lineage designation "Ibn Lajlaj."Nasai also narrated it likewise 2:55, from Muhammad bin Amir, from Mansur bin Salama, from Layth bin Saad, from Ibn Hadi, from Suhayl, with this chain. Bayhaqi likewise narrated it in Sunan al-Kubra 9:161, through the route of Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Abdul-Hakam, from his father and from Shuayb bin Layth, both from Layth bin Saad, with it.Hammad bin Salama narrated it from Suhayl, and from Muhammad bin Amr bin Alqama, and the narration from him differs accordingly. Perhaps this discrepancy is due to a lapse on Hammad's part, for he is trustworthy and precise in memory, but even a reliable narrator may sometimes err or slip.Ahmad narrated it in Al-Musnad 8493, from Affan, from Hammad bin Salama, from two teachers, first from Muhammad bin Amr (from Safwan, meaning Ibn Sulaym, from Qaqa bin Lajlaj, from Abu Hurairah), and second, Suhayl, from Qaqa bin Lajlaj, from Abu Hurairah. And he said at the end of the hadith, "Hammad said, one of them said, Qaqa bin Lajlaj, and the other said, Lajlaj bin Qaqa."In my view, his statement in this second chain, "and Suhayl from Qaqa," is not meant literally. Rather, what is meant is to indicate that Hammad bin Salama narrated it from the two teachers, Muhammad bin Amr bin Alqama and Suhayl, and that both of them narrated it from Safwan, meaning Ibn Sulaym, and that they differed only in what Hammad heard from them regarding the name of the successor, one of them saying Qaqa bin Lajlaj and the other saying Lajlaj bin Qaqa. So Suhayl's narration is not from Qaqa or Lajlaj directly, but rather from Safwan, from Qaqa or Lajlaj, and the name of his teacher, namely Safwan, was omitted from Suhayl's chain, as indicated by the context, and as shown by the other narrations from Nasai, Hakim, and Bayhaqi that we mentioned, all of which have it as a narration of Suhayl from Safwan.This is further supported by the fact that Hakim also narrated it 2:72, through the route of Amr bin Ali Fallas, from Abdul-Rahman bin Mahdi, "Hammad bin Salama narrated to us, from Suhayl bin Abu Salih, from Safwan bin Sulaym, from Abu Lajlaj." These narrations are all decisive proof that Suhayl narrated it only from Safwan, not directly from Qaqa, and that the chain found at 8493 is not to be taken at face value. It is very possible that the phrase "from Safwan bin Sulaym" was accidentally dropped by the copyists at that point in Al-Musnad.Hakim's narration through the route of Amr bin Ali Fallas was also narrated by Nasai 2:55, from Amr bin Ali himself, with a chain similar to Hakim's, except that the successor's name in it is Khalid bin Lajlaj. This appears to be a lapse on Hammad bin Salama's part. That is why, when Ibn Hajar quoted in Al-Tahdhib 2:388, in the entry for Husayn bin Lajlaj, that he is also called Khalid, and also called Abu Ala, he said, "Ibn Hibban mentioned him in Ath-Thiqat under Husayn, and when he mentioned Khalid bin Lajlaj in his Ath-Thiqat, he gave him the kunya Abu Ala, but said of him, he narrates from Umar and several others, and from him narrate Makhul and Ibn Jabir." It appears that this is a different person from the one under discussion.Ibn Hajar erred and made a mistake in what he quoted from Ibn Hibban, for what is actually in Ath-Thiqat, p. 177, reads as follows, "Khalid bin Lajlaj, Abu Ibrahim Amiri, brother of Ala bin Lajlaj, counted among the people of Syria, and he was among the most excellent people of his time. He narrates from Umar bin Khattab, and from his father, and from Abdul-Rahman bin Aish. Makhul and Abdul-Rahman bin Yazid bin Jabir narrated from him."So this is another, earlier successor, who has his own separate entry in Al-Tahdhib 3:115, and his mention has already come up in the commentary on hadith 2484. Bukhari gave him an entry in Al-Kabir 1/2/156, and narrated in his entry, from Ibn Ishaq, who said, "Makhul said to me, Khalid was advanced in age and righteous, bold of tongue against rulers in his sternness toward them."So how far is this person from that one? All that has happened is that Hammad bin Salama did not precisely retain the name in his memory, and so the narrators from him differed, as you see. That is why Hakim, after all this, extracted himself and mentioned him under the name Ibn Lajlaj, even though the copyists distorted it to Abu Lajlaj, as we consider more likely.What led Ibn Hajar into this error, in my view, was hastiness in copying from Kitab al-Thiqat. It had stuck in his mind that Ibn Lajlaj, the narrator of this hadith, is mentioned in some narrations by his kunya Abu Ala bin Lajlaj. He then saw in Kitab al-Thiqat, in the entry for Amiri, the phrase "brother of Ala bin Lajlaj," and read it as "Abu Ala," his eye moving to it quickly, so that he did not read the kunya that Ibn Hibban had mentioned immediately before it, "Abu Ibrahim Amiri." Something like this happens often, and no meticulous scholar is free of it. May Allah have mercy on him and on us.As for the narration in which Ibn Lajlaj is mentioned by his kunya Abu Ala bin Lajlaj, Nasai narrated it 2:56, from Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Abdul-Hakam, from Shuayb, from Layth, from Ubaydullah bin Abu Jafar, from Safwan bin Abu Yazid, from Abu Ala bin Lajlaj, that he heard Abu Hurairah say... and he mentioned it in similar wording, as a stopped narration. Bukhari also pointed to this narration in Al-Kabir, in the entry for Safwan, and stated explicitly that it is a stopped narration. But Safwan is mentioned in this narration of his under the name Safwan bin Yazid. So Bukhari intended to point to this disagreement, and to the fact that it is a stopped narration.Ibn Abu Hatim mentioned it in Kitab Al-Ilal, no. 909, saying that he heard his father mention it, and that his father said, "Abu Salih told us, from Layth, and he is actually Safwan bin Abu Yazid, and I think there is, between Ubaydullah bin Abu Jafar and Safwan, Suhayl bin Abu Salih."This is a good critical analysis from Abu Hatim. He established, first, that Layth's narration from Ubaydullah has it as Safwan bin Yazid, and he judged this to be an error, the correct form being Safwan bin Abu Yazid. He established, second, that in it the intermediate link between Ubaydullah and Safwan was omitted, and he suggested that Suhayl bin Abu Salih was between them, drawing support from the other narrations. It should be noted that in Kitab Al-Ilal there occurs, in this narration, a copyist's or printer's error, it reads, "from Abu Ala bin Abu Lajlaj," when the correct reading is "Ibn Lajlaj," with "Abu" removed.After all this, the hadith has another sahih chain, which will come at 8460, from Yunus, from Layth, from Muhammad bin Ajlan, from Suhayl bin Abu Salih, from his father, from Abu Hurairah, as a raised narration, with similar wording. It adds at the beginning, "They will not both be in Hell together in a way that harms either of them, a Muslim who killed a disbeliever, and then the Muslim remained steadfast or nearly so..." This is a sahih chain.Nasai also narrated it, 2:55, from Isa bin Hammad, and Hakim, 2:72, through the route of Yahya bin Bukayr, both from Layth, with it. Hakim said, "This is a sahih hadith according to the criterion of Muslim, though the two of them did not include it." He then followed it with the two narrations of Jareer and Hammad bin Salama from Safwan, which we mentioned before. Dhahabi, in his Talkhis, then took these two narrations to be a defect in the first narration! But they are no such thing. Rather, they are narrations that reinforce one another.Ibn Hajar took all these narrations to represent confusion, saying in Al-Isabah 3:263, "Ibn Hibban erred, in citing the route of Ibn Ajlan," meaning the narration [8460], "and overlooked the confusion it contains." We have clarified what is sahih, and detailed where some of the narrators erred, and this does not amount to confusion, Allah willing.