ibn ʿAzīz related to us; Salāmah ibn Rūḥ related to us; ʿUqayl related to me, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar, from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: he used to distribute the alms of breaking the fast (zakāt al-fiṭr) as one sāʿ of dates or one sāʿ of barley. (1)
Through this same chain it is also reported that al-Ḥusayn (2) died with two days left of Shawwāl in the year 328 AH.
Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Qurashī informed us; Muḥammad ibn ʿImād informed us; Ibn Rifāʿah informed us; Abū al-Ḥasan al-Khilaʿī informed us; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥājj al-Ishbīlī, known as al-Shāhid, informed us; Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Sindī dictated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAzīz al-Aylī in Aylah related to us; Salāmah ibn Rūḥ related to us; ʿUqayl related to us, from Ibn Shihāb, from Anas, who said:
“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, ‘The largest group among the people of Paradise will be the guileless.’” (3)
128 – Saʿīd ibn Abī Hilāl al-Laythī (ʿ)
The imam, ḥāfiẓ, and jurist; Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Laythī, their client, an Egyptian—one of the trustworthy narrators.
(1) Salama b. Ruh is a weak transmitter, yet the hadith is sound through another chain. It is reported by al-Bukhari 3/291, Muslim (no. 984), Abu Dawud (1611), al-Nasaʾi 5/47 and al-Tirmidhi (676), all through Nafiʿ from Ibn ʿUmar: “The Messenger of Allah, ﷺ, prescribed zakat al-fitr—one saʿ of dates or one saʿ of barley—for every slave and free person, male and female, young and old among the Muslims, and he ordered that it be paid before the people go out to the prayer.”
(2) The man referred to is al-Husayn b. Muhammad b. al-Mutabbaqi, one of the narrators. The author records his death in al-ʿIbar 2/212 under the year 328 AH; see also Tarikh Baghdad 8/97 for his biography.
(3) The chain is weak because of Salama b. Ruh. Abu Zurʿa said: “He is weak; his hadith are objectionable,” and Abu Hatim said: “Salama b. Ruh is not strong; I regard him as heedless.” The report is also given by al-Tahawi in Sharh Mushkil al-Athar 4/121, by al-Bazzar, al-Daylami in their Musnads, by al-Bayhaqi in al-Shuʿab and by al-Khalʿi in his Fawaʾid, all through Salama b. Ruh from ʿUqayl b. Khalid. Even if its authenticity were conceded, its meaning—according to Abu Jaʿfar al-Tahawi citing Ahmad b. Abi ʿUmar—is that it concerns those truly naïve regarding Allah’s prohibitions, not everyone whose intellect is deficient.
(*) Sources on the narrator: Tarikh al-Bukhari 3/519; al-Jarh wa-l-taʿdil 4/71; Mashahir ʿUlamaʾ al-Amsar, p. 190.