the three, and he added the name: "Most Compassionate"! And he omitted the phrase: "You alone, no partner have You." There is no basis for the mentioned name except in a narration by Aḥmad in the path (Khalaf) (3/158), and I suspect it is also an error by some scribes or narrators; for in another narration by him (3/245): "Most Generous," which is confirmed in the narrations of Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, al-Ṭaḥāwī, Ibn Ḥibbān, and al-Ḥākim, and the ḥadīth of the chapter supports it. I suspect that what is in "al-Targhīb" is partly the author's own concoction between the narrations—something he is accustomed to doing!—and partly from the scribes. The three commentators on it (2/481) did not notice this confusion, so they did not point it out as required by the verification they claimed in their new edition of "al-Targhīb"! Rather, they added their own confusion! They replaced his statement: "I asked Allāh"—as established in "Musnad Aḥmad" and others—with their statement: [he supplicated to Allāh], like this in brackets, and they commented on it saying: "It is not in (B)"! I say: This is a weak comment, for although the addition contradicts the narration of "al-Musnad," it means that the original they printed from has an omission, and that it is in the wording: "Indeed... by His greatest name..." This is neither reasonable nor understandable! They should have clarified what is in version (B), (that is the extent of their knowledge) and the alleged verification! They further compounded the confusion by attributing the ḥadīth to Aḥmad (5/349 and 360)! Whereas it is in the third volume as previously mentioned. After writing the above, I returned to "al-Iḥsān fī Taqrīb Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān" in its two editions, and I saw in the ḥadīth of Khalaf: