Ahmad 7655

Its isnad is sahih. It is part of the Sahifa of Hammam bin Munabbih, and it will come again at 8216 with this same isnad. Muslim likewise narrated it in 2/22, via Abdul-Razzaq, with the same wording. Bukhari narrated it in 5/128, and Tirmidhi in 3/140, in similar but abridged form, via Amash, from Abu Salih, from Abu Hurairah. See also similar wording at 7422 and 7564.As for his saying "nima," Hafiz said in Fath al-Bari, "It is pronounced with fatha on the nun and kasra on the ayn, with the mim assimilated into the following mim, though kasra on the nun is also permissible. The nun may also take kasra or fatha while the ayn is left silent and the mim is vocalized. That makes four dialectal forms." Zajjaj said, "Ma here means 'the thing,' so the intended sense is 'excellent is the thing.'"Hafiz's statement "with the mim vocalized" is not precise, since in every one of these forms the mim is doubled through the assimilation of the first mim into the second. So making the ayn silent while the mim is doubled would mean combining two silent letters together, as stated in Lisan Arab 16/66 and in Nawawi's commentary on Sahih Muslim 11/137.Three of these dialectal forms are actually found in Quranic recitation. In the verse of Baqarah 271, "then it is excellent" [Baqarah 2:271], and in the verse of Nisa 58, "how excellent is that which He instructs you with" [Nisa 4:58], Ibn Kathir, Warsh, and Hafs read it as "nima" with kasra on both the nun and the ayn, while Abu Bakr and Abu Amr read it with kasra on the nun and a suppressed vowel on the ayn, which may also be left fully silent. What is meant here by "suppression" is a sound resembling silence but not fully apparent. The rest of the seven reciters read it with fatha on the nun and kasra on the ayn. See Taysir fi Qiraat Sab by Abu Amr Dani, p. 84.