The judge Abū al-Majd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar al-ʿUqaylī wrote to me; ʿUmar ibn ʿAlī ibn Qushām al-Ḥanafī in Aleppo informed us; the ḥāfiẓ Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Ashīrī (1) informed us; Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Mawhib informed us; Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd Allāh, the ḥāfiẓ, informed us; Khalaf ibn al-Qāsim narrated to us; al-Ḥasan ibn Rashīq narrated to us; Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Yūnus narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā narrated to us; Salamah ibn Rajāʾ narrated, from al-Walīd ibn Jamīl, from al-Qāsim, from Abū Umāmah, who said:
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Indeed Allah, His angels, the inhabitants of the heavens and the earth—even the ant in its hole and the fish in the sea—invoke blessings upon the one who teaches goodness.”
This report is transmitted solely by al-Walīd, and he is not dependable (2).
A number of our teachers informed us, from their teachers, from Abū al-Fatḥ ibn al-Baṭṭī, from Muḥammad ibn Abī Naṣr, the ḥāfiẓ, from Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, who said: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik narrated to us; Abū Saʿīd ibn al-Aʿrābī narrated to us; Ibrāhīm al-ʿAbsī narrated to us, from Wakīʿ, from al-Aʿmash, who said: Abū Khālid al-Wālibī narrated to us, saying, “We used to sit with the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ …”
= Chapter heading in Sahih al-Bukhari: “The prescribed punishments are an expiation for those upon whom they are carried out.” Parallel reports are found in: al-Nasaʾi 7/137–139 at the beginning of the chapter “al-Bayʿah”; Ibn Majah no. 2866; Musnad Ahmad 3/444 and 5/314, 316, 319; Musnad al-Tayalisi 2/167; Ibn Abi ʿAsim, nos. 1029, 1030, 1031, 1032, 1034, 1035; al-Khatib, Tarikh Baghdad 1/376–377; and al-Bayhaqi 8/145.
(1) Ibn al-Athir explains that the nisba “al-Ashiri” is vocalised with a fatḥa on the initial hamza, a kasra on the dotted shin, a sukun on the ya, followed by a ra; it refers to Ashir, a fortress in the Maghrib (North-West Africa).
(2) Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar states in al-Taqrib that he is “truthful but prone to error,” while the rest of the transmitters are trustworthy. The hadith is also related by al-Tirmidhi (2685) in the Book of Knowledge, by al-Tabarani (7911, 7912), and by Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr in Jamiʿ Bayan al-ʿIlm, p. 38, all through the chain of al-Walad b. Jamil. Al-Diyaʾ al-Maqdisi included it in al-Mukhtara. It is further strengthened by a corroborating report from Abu al-Dardaʾ, transmitted by Ahmad 5/196, Abu Dawud (3641), al-Tirmidhi (2684), al-Darimi 1/98, Ibn Majah (223), and Ibn Hibban (88), and by another report from Jabir, recorded by al-Tabarani in al-Awsat, cited in Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid 1/124.