= 2- And from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, may God be pleased with him, who said: When the Prophet, peace and blessings of God be upon him, was taken on the Night Journey, his Lord drew near to him, so He was at a distance of two bow-lengths or nearer.
Al-Suyūṭī mentioned it in Al-Durr al-Manthūr (6/158), and attributed it to Ibn al-Mundhir and Ibn Mardawayh.
3- Ibn Khuzayma narrated in Al-Tawḥīd (435) after the hadith of Sharīk, from ʿAbbād b. Manṣūr, who said: I asked al-Ḥasan, saying: "Then He drew near and came down," who is that, O Abū Saʿīd? He said: My Lord.
Then Ibn Khuzayma, may Allah have mercy on him, said: And in the report of Kathīr b. Ḥubaysh, from Anas, may God be pleased with him: that the Prophet, peace and blessings of God be upon him, said a phrase similar to this one in the report of Sharīk b. ʿAbd Allāh. Then he mentioned it.
I say: This is how he vocalized it here: (Ḥubaysh) with an undotted ḥāʾ and a dotted shīn. It was previously vocalized shortly before with a dotted khāʾ and an undotted sīn [Khunays], and this latter vocalization is what is found in most biographical dictionaries.
4- Ibn Khuzayma, may Allah have mercy on him, said in Al-Tawḥīd (1/418): As for His statement, Majestic and Exalted is He: {Then He drew near and came down, and was at a distance of two bow-lengths or nearer} [al-Najm: 8-9], in the report of Sharīk b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Namir, from Anas b. Mālik, may God be pleased with him, there is clear evidence that the meaning of His statement: {Then He drew near and came down} is that the Compeller, the Lord of Might, drew near, not Gabriel. Then he mentioned the context of the hadith.
5- Abū ʿAwāna, may Allah have mercy on him, said in his Musnad (1/132): Chapters in refuting the Jahmīs, and clarifying that Paradise is created, and that the Prophet, peace and blessings of God be upon him, entered it, and that it is above the heavens, and that the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary is above it, and that God is above it, and that the Prophet, peace and blessings of God be upon him, reached it, and that he drew near to the Lord of Might and the Lord of Might drew near to him at a distance of two bow-lengths or nearer, and that the colors that covered the Lote Tree were from His light, Blessed and Exalted is He... End quote.
6- Ibn Surayj, may Allah have mercy on him, said in his epistle which he wrote on affirming the attributes, in which he cited many of the attributes: "... and their likes from what the Qur'an has articulated, such as aboveness, the Self, the two Hands... and drawing near, like two bow-lengths or nearer... etc." [See my book: Al-Jāmiʿ fī ʿAqāʾid Ahl al-Sunna wa-al-Athar (1/43), the Aqidah of Ibn Surayj, paragraph (5)].
7- Ibn Baṭṭa, may Allah have mercy on him, said in Al-Ibāna al-Ṣughrā (310): And that he rode the Burāq, =