= necessitate discarding his hadith. The error of a reliable narrator in one place of a hadith does not invalidate the entire hadith, especially if the error does not entail committing something prohibited. If the hadith of anyone who made an error in history were abandoned, the hadith of a group of the imams of the Muslims would be abandoned. End quote. [Al-Fatḥ (13/493)].

I say: The indication of this phrase regarding the drawing near of the Compeller, Mighty and Majestic, is not something Sharīk was alone in narrating. As stated in Al-Fatḥ (13/488): "There is reservation regarding the claim that he was the sole narrator, for Kathīr b. Khunays—with a dotted letter and a nūn, in the diminutive form—corroborated him from Anas, as Saʿīd b. Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Umawī recorded in Kitāb al-Maghāzī through his route." End quote.

This addition was also narrated by Ibn Jarīr in his Tafsīr (11/509), saying: Khallād b. Aslam narrated to us, saying: al-Naḍr informed us, Muḥammad b. ʿAmr b. ʿAlqama b. Waqqāṣ al-Laythī informed us, from Kathīr, from Anas b. Mālik, may God be pleased with him, who said: The Messenger of God, peace and blessings of God be upon him, said: "When I was taken up, Gabriel proceeded until he reached Paradise. He said: So I entered, and I was given al-Kawthar. Then he proceeded until he reached the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary, and your Lord drew near and came down, so He was at a distance of two bow-lengths or nearer, and He revealed to His servant what He revealed..."

Ibn Khuzayma also narrated it in Kitāb al-Tawḥīd (436).

It has other corroborating reports, including: what Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī narrated in Tahdhīb al-Āthār (1/420-421), through the route of Maymūn b. Siyāh, from Anas, may God be pleased with him.

And among them: what al-Bayhaqī narrated in Al-Dalāʾil (2/382-383) through the route of Ḥammād b. Salama, from Thābit al-Bunānī, from Anas b. Mālik, may God be pleased with him.

Thus, this is a Sahih (Authentic) phrase, and narrations have come from the Companions, may God be pleased with them, and the Successors after them, testifying to its acceptance and authenticity. The people of the Sunna have articulated it in their compilations and Aqidahs, and among that:

1- From Abū Salama, from Ibn ʿAbbās, may God be pleased with them both, regarding the Almighty's statement: {And he certainly saw him in another descent, at the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary} [al-Najm: 13-14], he said: His Lord drew near to him and came down, so He was at a distance of two bow-lengths or nearer, and He revealed to His servant what He revealed. He said: The Prophet, peace and blessings of God be upon him, saw Him.

Narrated by al-Ṭabarī in Al-Tafsīr (11/514), and al-Lālakāʾī (916). =