by Muḥammad b. Isḥāq, from Yaʿqūb b. ʿUtba, from Jubayr. Then some of them say: 'And Ibn Isḥāq did not say: He narrated to me, so it is possible that it is Broken (Munqati').' And some of them make excuses using the speech of some concerning Ibn Isḥāq, even though this hadith and its likes, and what resembles it in wording and meaning, have not ceased to be circulated among the people of knowledge, successor from predecessor. The Predecessors (Salaf) of the Umma and its Imams have not ceased narrating that with the narration of one who affirms it, refuting with it those who oppose it from the Jahmiyya, receiving that with acceptance, to the point that the Imam Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Khuzayma mentioned it in his Book al-Tawḥīd, in which he stipulated that he would not use as evidence except the hadiths of trustworthy narrators with continuous chains of transmission... etc."
Mukhtaṣar al-Ṣawāʿiq (3/1068), and see his Book Tahdhīb al-Sunan (7/94-115), for he affirmed this hadith therein, and refuted those who criticized it with a detailed, lengthy refutation.
And he said in his Nūniyya (pp. 101-102):
"And remember a hadith of Ibn Isḥāq, the approved ... that truthful, divine hadith master, In the story of their seeking rain, seeking intercession ... to the Messenger by his Beneficent Lord. So the Chosen One deemed that grave and said: The status ... of Allah, Lord of the Throne, is the greatest status. Allah is above the Throne, above His heaven ... Glory be to the Possessor of the dominion and authority. And His Throne has a creaking from Him, just as ... the saddle of the hasty rider creaks. By Allah, what Ibn Isḥāq has faced from the ... Jahmī when he accuses him with hostility, Yet he continues to praise him if what he ... narrates agrees with the school of the criticizer. How many of their likes have we seen ... so the judgment belongs to Allah, the Great in status. This is the true shortchanging, not the shortchanging in ... measuring length, nor volume, nor weight."
And his statement regarding Muḥammad b. Isḥāq: "(the approved, divine)" is subject to review; he is a truthful hadith master, but more than one of the Imams of the Predecessors (Salaf) accused him of Qadar (denying predestination) and other things. Al-Siyar (7/33).
He said in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (1/84): "Al-Bazzār narrated it, and its narrators are the narrators of the Sahih (Authentic)." End quote.
