of the ḥadith scholars in our land—trustworthy, exact, and highly proficient in this field.
ʿAbdūs passed away in Ṣafar of the year 312 AH; his residence was in the al-Sāji quarter of the city.
Ahmad ibn Hibat Allah told us; Abu Rūḥ informed us; Tamīm ibn Abī Saʿīd told us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān told us; Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, the ḥadith master, told us; ʿAbdūs ibn Aḥmad, the ḥadith master, narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd al-Hamadhānī narrated to us; al-Rabīʿ ibn Ziyād narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr narrated to us, from Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Taymī, from ʿAlqamah ibn Waqqāṣ, from ʿUmar who said:
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Actions are judged only by intentions, and every person will have only what he intended. So whoever’s migration was for Allah and His Messenger, his migration was indeed for Allah and His Messenger; but whoever’s migration was to attain some worldly benefit or to marry a woman, his migration is for that for which he migrated.”
This ḥadith is exceedingly singular. It is transmitted solely by Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd, and he is truthful. (1)
(1) As for al-Rabiʿ ibn Ziyad, the shaykh of the narrator, the author states in Al-Mizan 2/40: “I have not seen anyone declare him weak; his reports are acceptable.” He then cites Ibn ʿAdi: “He has several hadiths from Yahya ibn Saʿid among the Medinese transmitters that are not corroborated by others.”
This hadith is transmitted, through various chains from Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Ansari, from Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Taymi with this same isnad, by al-Bukhari 1/7, 15 in “The Beginning of Revelation,” chapter “How Revelation Began”; in “Faith,” chapter “Actions are by intention”; in “Manumission,” chapter “Error and forgetfulness in manumission, divorce and the like”; in “The Virtues of the Prophet’s Companions,” chapter “The migration of the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions to Madinah”; in “Marriage,” chapter “Whoever migrated or performed a good deed to marry a woman, he receives what he intended”; in “Oaths and Vows,” chapter “Intention in oaths”; and in “Stratagems,” chapter “Avoiding legal stratagems.” It is also recorded by Muslim (1907) in “Governance,” chapter “The statement of the Prophet ﷺ ‘Actions are only by intention’,” by Abu Dawud (2201), al-Tirmidhi (1647), Ibn Majah (4427), al-Nasaʾi 1/58, 60, and by Malik in the Muwatta, p. 401, in the narration of Muhammad ibn al-Hasan.
Ibn Rajab remarks in Jamiʿ al-ʿulum wa-l-hikam, p. 5: “This hadith is uniquely transmitted by Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Ansari from Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Taymi from ʿAlqama ibn Abi Waqqas al-Laythi from ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab, and no other sound route for it is known.” Yet a large number of scholars reported it from Yahya ibn Saʿid, so it is solitary at its beginning, well-known at its conclusion.