Muḥammad ibn Ḥimyar al-Ḥimṣī reported: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh narrated to us, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah—traced back to the Prophet ﷺ—who said, “When one of you writes a letter, let him dust it with earth, for that is more likely to secure the desired outcome.” (1)
Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh also transmitted—from al-Awzāʿī, from al-Zuhrī, from Saʿīd, from ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, attributing it to the Prophet ﷺ—who said, “There will arise in this community a man called al-Walīd; he will be harsher toward my nation than Pharaoh was toward his people.” (2)
Abū Ḥātim ibn Ḥibbān remarked, “This report is baseless.”
That is what he claimed; however, the chain is actually sound.
Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh related—from Ḍamḍam ibn Zurʿah, from Shurayḥ ibn ʿUbayd, from Abū Rāshid al-Ḥubrānī, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Shibl—who said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade eating the desert lizard (ḍabb).” (3)
This ḥadīth is rejected, and I consider it mursal (with a missing link in the chain).
Ibn ʿAyyāsh further narrated—from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd and Ibn Jurayj, from ʿAmr ibn
Al-Nasa i, 8/70, Book of Theft, chapter “What is considered a secure place and what is not,” transmits—through Ibn Wahb who said: “I heard Ibn Jurayj relate from Amr ibn Shuayb, from his father, from his grandfather.” This chain is judged hasan (sound). Al-Hakim, 4/383, declared it sahih (authentic) and the author of the Mukhtasar concurred. A supporting report exists from Ibn Masud, recorded by Ahmad, 1/419 and 1/438, and by Al-Hakim, 4/382–383; it is acceptable as corroborative evidence.
(1) Its chain is weak because Ismail ibn Ayyash’s narrations from non-Syrians are unreliable. It was also recorded by al-Tirmidhi (2713) through Mahmud ibn Ghaylan, from Shababah, from Hamzah, from Abu al-Zubayr, from Jabir, who said… Al-Tirmidhi remarked: “This is a munkar (deniable) hadith; we do not know it from Abu al-Zubayr except through this route. Hamzah—whom I take to be Ibn Amr al-Nasibi—is weak in hadith.”
(2) Ahmad, al-Musnad, 1/18, records it through Abu al-Mughirah: Ibn Ayyash related to us, saying: “Al-Awzai and others told me, from al-Zuhri, from Sa id ibn al-Musayyib, from Umar.” The chain is weak because it is disconnected: Sa id ibn al-Musayyib did not meet Umar. Al-Hafiz al-Iraqi judged the report fabricated, but his student Ibn Hajar rebutted him in al-Qawl al-Musaddad, pp. 5–6 and 11–16.
(3) Abu Dawud (3796), Book of Foods, chapter “On eating the dhab,” also transmits it. Al-Munziri notes in his Mukhtasar that both Ismail ibn Ayyash and Dammad (Dumdam) have been critiqued. Al-Khattabi comments that its isnad “is not strong,” and al-Bayhaqi adds that the chain is unestablished, for Ismail ibn Ayyash is the sole narrator of it and he is not a decisive authority.