was listening—it was said to him:
“ʿAmr ibn Muḥammad al-Nāqid has related to you; Sufyān related to us; ʿAmr ibn Dīnār related to us, from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather, who said:
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, ‘The prayer of one who sits is worth half the prayer of one who stands.’ (1)”
This ḥadith has a sound chain of transmission and a well-preserved wording.
The ḥāfiẓ al-Ḍiyāʾ, in his book al-Mukhtārah (2), compiled an entire collection of narrations on the authority of ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from his grandfather.
The descendants of ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb—to this very day—remain in al-Taʾif, where they continue to inherit al-Waḥṭ, an exceptionally large orchard that provides the livelihood of a sizeable household.
Al-Taʾif itself is a pleasant valley, rich in fruit, grapes, and cool waters; in winter the water there even freezes—a trustworthy acquaintance told me he had personally seen the ice. The town has a large congregational mosque and lies a little more than a day’s journey from Mecca. The produce and other blessings of al-Taʾif are transported to Mecca and elsewhere.
(1) Its chain of transmission (isnad) is judged hasan. The hadith is also recorded by Muslim, no. 735, in “The Prayer of Travellers and the Shortening of the Prayer,” chapter: “The permissibility of voluntary prayer while standing or sitting, and of performing part of a rakʿa standing and part sitting”; by Abu Dawud, no. 950, in “Prayer,” chapter: “Prayer while sitting”; and by al-Nasai, 3 / 223, in “Night Prayer,” chapter: “The difference between the prayer of the one who stands and that of the one who sits.” All cite the route of Mansur → Hilal ibn Yasaf → Abu Yahya → ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr, who related: “I was informed that the Messenger of Allah said, ‘A man’s prayer while sitting is worth half his prayer.’ I therefore went to him and found him praying seated. I placed my hand on his head, whereupon he said, ‘What is the matter, ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr?’ I replied, ‘Messenger of Allah, I was told you said, “A man’s prayer while sitting is worth only half a prayer,” yet I find you praying seated.’ He answered, ‘Yes—but I am not like one of you.’ ”
(2) The work has not yet been printed; several fascicles are preserved in the Zahiriyya Library, Damascus. Al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir states that it contains valuable hadith studies and, had it been completed, would surpass al-Hakim’s Mustadrak. Al-Hafiz quotes in al-Baʿith al-Hathith, p. 29, that one of his own teachers even preferred it to the Mustadrak—apparently referring to Ibn Taymiyya. Al-Suyuti, citing al-Zarkashi in his takhrij of al-Rafiʿi, adds that its grading of hadith is more reliable than that of al-Tirmidhi or Ibn Hibban.
The author is Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahid ibn Ahmad ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Maqdisi al-Jamaʿili, later al-Dimashqi al-Salihi—a well-travelled hadith expert who studied extensively in Damascus, Egypt, Baghdad and Herat, and learned from numerous shaykhs. His writings attest to his prodigious memory and erudition in both the texts and chains of transmission. He died in 643 AH; a detailed biography will appear in the final volume of the present work.