Fawāids |Qur'ān | Authentic Sunnah

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Sufyān ibn Wakīʿ narrated to us, [who] said: ʿUbaydullāh ibn Mūsā narrated to us, from ʿĪsā ibn ʿUmar, from al-Suddī, from Anas ibn Mālik, who said:

قَالَ كَانَ عِنْدَ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم طَيْرٌ فَقَالَ ‏ “‏ اللَّهُمَّ ائْتِنِي بِأَحَبِّ خَلْقِكَ إِلَيْكَ يَأْكُلُ مَعِي هَذَا الطَّيْرَ ‏”‏ ‏.‏ فَجَاءَ عَلِيٌّ فَأَكَلَ مَعَهُ

There was, in the presence of the Prophet (ﷺ)  a bird, and he said: “O Allāh, bring to me the most beloved of Your creation to You, to eat with me [from] this bird.” So ʿAlī came, and ate with him [from] it.

In other versions – Abū Ya’lā 4052 and al-Kubrā of al-Nasā’ī 8398 contains the addition:

فجاء أبو بكر فَرَدَّهُ، ثُمَّ جاء عمر فَرَدَّهُ، ثُمَّ جاء عليّ فَأَذِنَ لَهُ

“so Abū Bakr came, and he [the Prophet] turned him away; then ʿUmar came, and he turned him away; then ʿAlī came, and he admitted him.”

Also narrated by al-Bazzār #2548 via ‘Ubaydullāh ibn Mūsā from Ismāʿīl ibn Salmān al-Azraq in a longer variant wording. – al-Haythamī declared the isnād weak saying “In it [the chain] is Ismāʿīl ibn Salmān who is Matrūk (abandoned by the scholars of Hadīth).” (Majma al-Zawāid #14727)

– Al-Tirmidhī 3721, who said: “This is a gharīb hadīth; we do not recognise it from the hadīth of al-Suddī except through this route.”
– Declared weak by Al-Albānī & al-Arnāūt in their checking of Al-Tirmidhī.
– Declared munkar by al-Sinnārī in his checking of Abī Ya’lā 4052.
– Weakened by authors of Musannaf al-Mu’allal 1617 saying: “Its chain (isnād) is weak — Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Abī Karīmah al-Suddī is not thiqah (trustworthy and reliable), and [is] a wicked Shīʿī.”

Al-Tirmidhī said in al-ʿIlal 698: “I asked Muhammad” — meaning al-Bukhārī — “about this hadīth, and he did not recognise it from the hadīth of al-Suddī, from Anas, and he rejected it, and he began to express astonishment.”

al-Bazzār said: “It has been narrated from Anas through [various] routes, and everyone who narrated it from Anas is not [counted among] the strong (narrators); and Ismāʿīl [ibn Salmān] is a Kūfan, who narrated from Anas two hadīths.” (Kashf 3/194)

Al-Zaylaʿī said in Takhrīj al-Hidāyah: ‘How many a hadīth has had its narrators multiply and its routes become numerous, while [still] being a weak hadīth — like the hadīth of the bird, and the hadīth of the cupper and the one cupped, and the hadīth “Whoever’s master (mawlā) I am, ʿAlī is his master” — indeed, the multiplicity of routes may do nothing but increase a hadīth’s weakness.’ [End of quote] (Tuhfatul-Ahwadhī 16/249)

Shaykh ul-Islām said: “Indeed, the hadīth of the bird is among the fabrications, the forged material according to the people of knowledge and expertise in the realities of transmission.” (Minhāj al-Sunnah 4/99)

al-Khalīlī in al-Irshād (1/420): “[Among] the people of Marw [is the claim regarding] hadīth of the bird — it was fabricated by a liar upon Mālik, called Sakhr al-Hājibī. No thiqah has [ever] narrated hadīth al-tayr; the weak [narrators] have narrated it — such as Ismāʿīl ibn Salmān al-Azraq and his likes — and all the people of hadīth reject it.”

The criticised narrators of the chain(s):

1) Al-Suddī [al-Kabīr], Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Abī Karīmah al-Suddī:

Al-Jūzajānī said: “Al-Suddī: a liar, a slanderer.”

al-Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān said: “In Kūfah there are [two] liars: al-Kalbī, and al-Suddī.”

Yahyā ibn Maʿīn — and he mentioned Ibrāhīm ibn al-Muhājir and al-Suddī — and he said: “They were both weak, despicable.”

And al-Fallās said: I heard a man mention al-Suddī to ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Mahdī, and he said: “Weak”

And Abū Hātim al-Rāzī said: “His hadīth is [to be] written down [ i.e., recorded for consideration], but he is not cited as evidence.” [“And he was attributed with Shi’ism”].

And Abū Zurʿah said: “Layyin [weak’].”

And al-Husayn ibn Wāqid al-Marwazī said: “I sat with him [listening], and I had not [yet] risen before I heard him slander/revile Abū Bakr and ʿUmar — so I did not return to him.”

Al-Dhahabī said: “he was attributed with Shi’ism.” (Jāmi Li-Kutub al-Du’afā #1521)

2) Sufyān ibn Wakīʿ:

Al-Albānī said in al-Da’īfah #6575: “I say: Sufyān ibn Wakīʿ — al-Dhahabī said in al-Mughnī: “Weak.” And Abū Zurʿah said: “He was accused of lying.”

3) ‘Ubaydullāh ibn Mūsā:

Al-Albānī said: “ʿUbaydullāh — although he is thiqah and among the narrators of al-Shaykhayn — there is much criticism concerning him, as you see in al-Tahdhīb and elsewhere; he had errors and objectionable narrations, along with excess in al-tashayyuʿ (Shi’ism)…

Ibn Saʿd said in al-Tabaqāt (6/400):

“He was thiqah, sadūq, in shāʾ Allāh, prolific in hadīth, of good bearing, and he inclined toward al-tashayyuʿ (Shi’ism), and narrated munkar hadīths on the subject of al-tashayyuʿ — so he was graded weak on that account in the view of many people.”

And in al-Tahdhīb: Abū al-Hasan al-Maymūnī said: “[ʿUbaydullāh ibn Mūsā] was mentioned in his presence — meaning Ahmad ibn Hanbal — and I saw him as though repudiating him. He said: ‘He was a man of errors/confusion and he narrated evil hadīths — he brought forth those calamities and narrated them.’”

…ʿUbaydullāh was inconsistent in the chain of the hadīth — for at one time he narrated it from ʿĪsā ibn ʿUmar, from Ismāʿīl al-Suddī, as has preceded; and at another time he said: “Ismāʿīl ibn Salmān al-Azraq narrated to us, from Anas,”… (al-Da’īfah #6575)