is defective because it is transmitted by Bashshar ibn al-Hakam, and it is unanimously agreed that he narrates munkar reports; when he is the sole narrator, his transmission is not relied upon, as I clarified in al-Ahadith al-Daʿifah 2999. There I also demonstrated that the second half of the ḥadith is authentic thanks to corroborating chains, among them the report of al-Sanābihī cited a little earlier in this book. Had the author omitted the ḥadith, he would have been correct; otherwise he was duty-bound to expose its defect rather than conceal it.

He then said, under the sixth obligation of ablution: In the authentic ḥadith, “Begin with what Allah began with.”

I say: with this wording the ḥadith is anomalous and unsound; the reliably preserved wording is, “I begin with what Allah began with,” in the indicative, not the imperative. This is how Muslim and others narrated it, as I established in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl 4/316–319/1120; consult it.

His statement in the same section, “…and it has never been reported that the Prophet ﷺ performed ablution except in sequence,” simply follows Ibn al-Qayyim—may Allah have mercy on him—who affirmed the same in Zād al-Maʿād. I have refuted this in al-Taʿlīqāt al-Jiyād with the narration recorded by Aḥmad, and through his route Abū Dāwūd, from al-Miqdām ibn Maʿdīkarib, who said:

“Water for ablution was brought to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and he performed ablution: he washed his hands three times, his face three times, his arms three times; he then rinsed his mouth and nose three times, wiped over his head and ears—both their outer and inner parts—and washed his feet three times.” Its chain is sound.

Al-Shawkānī remarked, “Its isnād is acceptable.” Al-Ḍiyāʾ included it in al-Mukhtārah, and it shows that sequencing is not obligatory. I will add here that al-Nawawī and al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar both graded its chain as ḥasan.