and al-Zuhrī, omitting the names of the weak transmitters, such as ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿĀmir al-Aslamī and Ismāʿīl ibn Muslim.

I say: A number of authorities relate from al-Walīd that he said:
“ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Jurayj told us, from ʿAṭāʾ, from Ibn ʿAbbās who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, ‘Show leniency and leniency will be shown to you.’ (1)”

Some ḥadīth scholars faulted the report on the grounds that al-Walīd alone transmitted it. That is not the case, for it is also preserved by Yūsuf ibn Mūsā al-Qaṭṭān, who narrated: “Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth told us, from Ibn Jurayj….”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān likewise transmitted it from Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh, stating that Ibn Jurayj related it to them; and it was likewise reported by Mundal ibn ʿAlī and Khārijah ibn Muṣʿab from Ibn Jurayj, though they rendered it in mursal form.

I add: The most objectionable tradition he possesses is the one transmitted by ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd al-Dārimī and Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan—Aḥmad’s version being quoted here—who said:

“Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to us; al-Walīd ibn Muslim narrated to us; Ibn Jurayj narrated to us, from ʿAṭāʾ and ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said:

‘While we were in the presence of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, ʿAlī came in and said, “May my father and mother be your ransom! This Qur’an keeps slipping from my heart, and I find myself unable to retain it.”

He replied, “O Abū al-Ḥasan, shall I not teach you some words by which Allah will benefit you and make firm in your breast what you have learned?”

“Indeed, O Messenger of Allah,” he answered.

He said, “When the night of Friday comes, and if you are able to stand in prayer during the last third of the night— for that is a time witnessed, and supplication made then is answered; and my brother Jacob said to his sons, ‘I shall surely seek forgiveness for you from my Lord’ (Q 12:98) until the night of Friday arrived—then do so. If you cannot, then stand in its middle portion; and if you cannot, then in its first portion…”