An Error of Ibn Ḥibbān in Differentiating Between Two When They Are One!
Reconciling the biographies of Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn ʿAthmah across the classical biographical dictionaries.
Assessing Ibn Ḥibbān’s treatment of Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn ʿAthmah shows how a single narrator was split into two separate entries.
Ibn Ḥibbān mentioned in the section of the Followers of the Tābiʿīn in al-Thiqāt (9/55):
“Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn ʿAthmah: from the people of Baṣrah, narrates from Mālik and others. Bundār and the people of Baṣrah narrated from him. He sometimes brings rare reports.”
Then he repeated him after several entries (9/67), saying:
“Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn ʿAthmah, the freedman of Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Hāshimī, and ʿAthmah is his mother. He narrates from Mālik ibn Anas and Mūsā ibn Yaʿqūb al-Zumaʿī. Abū Mūsā Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā and the people of ʿIrāq narrated from him. He sometimes erred.”
I say: Thus Ibn Ḥibbān separated them, but they are one. Neither al-Mizzī nor Ibn Ḥajar noticed this, for both of them cited Ibn Ḥibbān’s statement regarding the second.
Al-Mizzī said in Tahdhīb al-Kamāl (25/143) in his biography:
“And Ibn Ḥibbān mentioned him in al-Thiqāt and said: ‘He sometimes erred.’”
But al-Bukhārī and others combined them:
Al-Bukhārī said in al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr (1/73):
“Muḥammad ibn Khālid, also said: Ibn ʿAthmah, and ʿAthmah is his mother, a Baṣrī, the freedman of Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān. He heard from Kathīr ibn ʿAbdillāh, and from Mūsā al-Zumaʿī. Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā narrated from him.”
And Ibn Abī Ḥātim said in al-Jarḥ waʾl-Taʿdīl (7/243):
“Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn ʿAthmah, and ʿAthmah is his mother. He narrated from: Mūsā ibn Yaʿqūb al-Zumaʿī, ʿAbdullāh ibn Jaʿfar al-Makhzūmī, Saʿīd ibn Bashīr, Mālik ibn Anas, Kathīr ibn ʿAbdillāh al-Muzanī, and Muḥammad ibn Hilāl. Narrated from him: ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā, Muḥammad ibn Bashshār, ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī, and Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿAnbarī. I heard my father say that.”
ʿAbdullāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: I asked my father about Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn ʿAthmah, and he said: “I see nothing wrong with his ḥadīth.” I asked my father about Muḥammad ibn Khālid, and he said: “Ṣāliḥ al-ḥadīth (acceptable in ḥadīth).”
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim said: Abū Zurʿah was asked about Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn ʿAthmah, and he said: “A Baṣrī, no harm in him.”
Ibn Ḥibbān mentioned in the first that Bundār narrated from him, and in the second that he narrated from Mūsā al-Zumaʿī. And here is a ḥadīth that combines both, narrated by al-Tirmidhī in his Jāmiʿ (2/354):
Muḥammad ibn Bashshār (Bundār) said: Ḥaddathanā Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn ʿAthmah, qāl: ḥaddathanī Mūsā ibn Yaʿqūb al-Zumaʿī, qāl: ḥaddathanī ʿAbdullāh ibn Kaysān: that ʿAbdullāh ibn Shaddād informed him, from ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd, that the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said: “The people closest to me on the Day of Judgment are those who send the most ṣalāh (blessings) upon me.”
Al-Tirmidhī said:
“This is a ḥadīth ḥasan gharīb. And it has been narrated from the Prophet ﷺ that he said: ‘Whoever sends one ṣalāh upon me, Allāh will send ten upon him and write for him ten good deeds.’”
I say: This is a ḥadīth uniquely narrated by Mūsā ibn Yaʿqūb al-Zumaʿī, and he was inconsistent in it, and he is weak—his ḥadīth are not used as proof. I have detailed the discussion on this ḥadīth elsewhere, and to Allāh belongs all praise.
Written by: Khālid al-Ḥāyik.
16/6/2010.