In the year 380 AH, Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; in the year 298 AH, Hudbah ibn Khālid narrated to us, saying: Hammām related to us; Qatādah, on the authority of Anas, on the authority of Abū Mūsā:
The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “The likeness of the believer who recites the Quran is that of the utrujjah—citron (1).”
Al-Bukhārī and Muslim recorded the ḥadith in full through the chain of Hudbah.
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Among the scholars there is a group who bear the name Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad; a number of them have already been mentioned, and the most eminent of them is Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, who held a lofty rank.
• Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿImrān al-Thaʿlabī: a Kufan, reliable; al-Tirmidhī transmitted ḥadith from him in the generation of Abū Kuraib.
• Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Fuḍayl al-Rasʿanī: a shaykh, trustworthy, and one of al-Tirmidhī’s teachers.
• Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Hudhayl al-Kūfī al-Qannād: one of al-Nasāʾī’s teachers.
• Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Bāhilī: a resident of Ḥarrān; he narrates from Abū Nuʿaym and his contemporaries.
(1) This is an excerpt from a hadith reported by al-Bukhari, 9/5958 (Book of the Virtues of the Quran, “The superiority of the Quran over all other speech”); also no. 86, “The sin of showing off in Quran-recitation”; no. 481 in the Book of Foods, “Mentioning food”; and 13/447 in the Book of Tawhid, “The recitation of the wicked and of the hypocrite.” Muslim transmits it as well (no. 797) in the Book of Prayer of Travellers, “The merit of the one who memorises the Quran.” The complete wording is: “The believer who recites the Quran is like the utrujja (citron): its taste is pleasant and its fragrance is pleasant. The believer who does not recite the Quran is like the date: its taste is pleasant but it has no fragrance. The sinner who recites the Quran is like the rayhana (basil): its fragrance is pleasant but its taste is bitter. And the sinner who does not recite the Quran is like the hanzala (colocynth): its taste is bitter and it has no fragrance.” The hadith is likewise recorded by Abu Dawud (4829), al-Tirmidhi (2865), al-Nasaʾi 8/124-125, and by al-Firyabi in Dhamm al-nifaq, p. 54.