Allah knows best. ⦗1⦘
ʿAbd al-Khāliq ibn ʿAbd al-Salām of Baalbek informed us; Abu Muḥammad ibn Qudāmah the jurist informed us; Ṭāhir ibn Muḥammad informed us; ʿAbdūs ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Hamadhānī informed us; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Ṭūsī reported to us; Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Aṣamm narrated to us; Abū ʿUtbah ⦗2⦘ narrated to us; Baqiyyah narrated to us; Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr related to me; Azhar ibn ʿAbd Allāh said, “I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn Busr, a Companion of the Prophet ﷺ, say:
‘We used to hear it said: If twenty men—or more, or fewer—gather together and there is no one among them who is held in awe for the sake of Allah, then the matter has already come to pass.’”
Kathīr ibn ʿUbayd reported: Baqiyyah narrated to us; Shuʿbah narrated to us; ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal told me, from Abū Qilābah, from Abū Asmāʾ, from Thawbān, traced back to the Prophet ﷺ: “Whoever guarantees me that he will never ask anyone for anything, I guarantee him Paradise.” ⦗3⦘
This narration is highly singular.
Muḥammad ibn Muṣaffā—and another—said: “Baqiyyah narrated to us, from al-Awzāʿī, from Ibn …”
(1) In Al-Mizan, 1/339, the author writes: “I say: Yes, by Allah, it is firmly established that he used to do this, and the same has been confirmed of al-Walid b. Muslim and a number of other senior scholars. It is a lapse on their part, yet they acted according to their own ijtihad and never assumed that the person whose name they hid by tadlis was deliberately lying. This is the best excuse that can be offered for them.”
(2) He is Ahmad b. al-Faraj b. Sulayman al-Kindi, Abu Utbah al-Himsi, nicknamed al-Hijazi, the mu’adhdhin of the central mosque of Hims; he is listed among the narrators in Tahdhib al-Tahdhib.
(3) All the transmitters are reliable. Abu Dawud (no. 1643, Book of Zakat) records the hadith through Ubayd Allah b. Mu‘adh—his father—Shu‘bah—‘Asim—Abi l-‘Aliyah—Thawban: “Whoever guarantees for me that he will not ask people for anything, I guarantee him Paradise.” Thawban replied, “I will,” and thereafter he never asked anyone for anything. Al-Nawawi judged the chain sound in Riyad al-Salihin, p. 256 (our edition). Ahmad (5/276) transmits it through Muhammad b. Ja‘far from Shu‘bah, and al-Nasa’i (5/96) through Yahya— Ibn Abi Dhi’b—Muhammad b. Qays—‘Abd al-Rahman b. Yazid b. Mu‘awiya—Thawban, in the wording: “Who will guarantee me one thing and he shall have Paradise?” Yahya explains that the intended “one thing” is not to ask people for anything.