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A few days ago I asked regarding a narration of 'Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه, where he said one rak'ah for witr wasn't sufficient, after Maulana Zeeshan gave a hand and pointed me in the right direction, I forwarded my question to Shaykh Abul Hasan. I'll post my question first, followed by the Shaykh's reply.

My question:

Answer from Shaykh Dr. Abul Hasan Hussain Ahmed:

Assalamu 'alaikum

The wording in the printed edition of al-Mu'jam al-Kabir of al-Tabarani only has the sanad going upto Husain as you mentioned:


al-Zayla'i also ascribed it to al-Mu'jam al-Kabir of al-Tabarani as you mentioned but this time the name of Ibrahim al-Nakha'i was mentioned in the link. The same was mentioned by al-Hafiz ibn Hajar in his al-Diraya fi Takhrij Ahadith al-Hidaya (p. 192):

مَا أخرجه الطَّبَرَانِيّ من طَرِيق إِبْرَاهِيم قَالَ ابْن مَسْعُود أَن سَعْدا يُوتر بِرَكْعَة فَقَالَ مَا أَجْزَأت رَكْعَة قطّ وَأخرجه مُحَمَّد بن يَعْقُوب عَن حُصَيْن عَن إِبْرَاهِيم عَن ابْن مَسْعُود أَنه قَالَ مَا أَجْزَأت رَكْعَة قطّ

What is surprsing is that al-Haythami also used the manuscript(s) of Tabarani's three Mu'jams in his Majma' al-Zawa'id (2/504) but he only knew of the version going upto Husain as follows:

رواه الطبراني في الكبير وحصين لم يدرك ابن مسعود وإسناده حسن 

There are two ways to look at it:

1) It may be that al-Zayla'i had access to a manuscript of al-Tabarani's al-Mu'jam al-Kabir with the ziyada in the sanad mentioning the name of Ibrahim al-Nakah'i, and the same applies to Ibn Hajar.

2) al-Zayla'i may have erred while copying and he accidentally added in the name of Ibrahim as it appeared in the Muwatta of Imam Muhammad. Since al-Diraya of Ibn Hajar is based on Nasb al-Ra'ya of al-Zayla'i, then ibn Hajar may not have gone back and checked the original manuscript of al-Tabarani's al-Mu'jam al-Kabir, as his teacher - al-Haythami did.

Note also that al-'Ayni mentioned the version from al-Shaybani in his al-Binaya Sharh al-Hidaya (2/484) and he did not mention the version from al-Tabarani at all:




But he did so in his Sharh Sunan Abi Dawud (5/331):




But he did not provide the sanad for Tabarani's version so we can't be sure if he had the ziyada of Ibrahim al-Nakha'i in the manuscript of Tabarani's al-Mu'jam al-Kabir he may have had access to - or else he may have relied on reading a work like Nasb al-Raya which was before his time.

Nevertheless, stick to what is in the Muwatta of Muhammad which is also in his al-Hujja 'ala Ahlil Madina (1/197):




The narration with that wording does not seem to be located in other works of hadith besides the two mentioned above.


Wallahu a'lam.

Wassalam.