whose drinking place is free from the impurities of falsehoods.
And I bear witness that Muḥammad is His servant and messenger, by whom He took on a night journey [2/a] from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, and elevated him to the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary, and showed him of His greatest signs, then he approached and descended, and was at a distance of two bow lengths or nearer, and He revealed to His servant what He revealed (1).
Some have rejected what this narration indicates regarding the attribution of drawing near and coming down to the Lord of Might, Mighty and Majestic, and other expressions mentioned in the hadith of Anas, may God be pleased with him, due to Sharīk b. ʿAbd Allāh, may Allah have mercy on him, being the sole narrator of them. However, this is not conceded to them in many of these instances.
The hadith master (ḥāfiẓ) Abū al-Faḍl Ibn Ṭāhir refuted them, saying: Finding a defect in the hadith due to Sharīk being the sole narrator, and Ibn Ḥazm's claim that the flaw stems from him, is something unprecedented. For Sharīk was accepted by the imams of Discrediting and Attestation; they declared him reliable, narrated from him, included his hadith in their compilations, and used him as evidence. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Dawraqī, ʿUthmān al-Dārimī, and ʿAbbās al-Dūrī narrated from Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn that he said: "There is no problem with him." Ibn ʿAdī said: "He is well-known among the people of Medina; Mālik and other reliable narrators transmitted from him, and his hadith, when a reliable narrator transmits from him, has no problem, unless a Da'if (Weak) narrator transmits from him."
Ibn Ṭāhir said: And this hadith of his was narrated from him by a reliable narrator, who is Sulaymān b. Bilāl.
He said: Even if we concede that he was the sole narrator of the phrase "before revelation came to him," that does not =
