I reply: Al-Shāfiʿī’s statement quoted in al-Tahdhīb refutes both that view and al-Bayhaqī’s, for he explicitly maintains that drawing the line is not prescribed unless the ḥadīth establishing it is proven. This can mean only one of two things:

1. He regards the matter as belonging to the domain of legal rulings rather than virtuous deeds—this is the most apparent sense of his words; or
2. He rejects acting on a weak ḥadīth even in matters of virtue.
   The second is the unquestionably correct position, as I clarified in the Introduction.

He then says, regarding the prohibition of passing in front of a worshiper and the use of a barrier: “On the authority of Zayd ibn Khālid, the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘If the person who passes in front of someone praying only knew what burden he incurs, it would be better for him to stand for forty kharīf (autumns) than to cross in front of him.’ Al-Bazzār, he notes, reports it with a sound chain.”

I respond: No, the chain is not sound, for the conditions of authenticity have not all been met. One of those conditions is freedom from anomaly (shudhūdh), and that is lacking here. One of its transmitters, Ibn ʿUyaynah, erred in two respects:

First, he listed the ḥadīth under the Musnad of Zayd ibn Khālid, whereas it properly belongs to the Musnad of Abū Juhaim. The collective narrations cited earlier in this book make that explicit, for they state that Zayd ibn Khālid sent word to Abū Juhaim asking about the report; thus, Zayd is merely the inquirer, not the transmitter.

Second, he used the phrase “forty kharīf (autumns),” and the addition of “kharīf” is a mistake on his part. He narrated it from Abū al-Naḍr, from Busar ibn Saʿīd, but Mālik and Sufyān al-Thawrī both report that Abū al-Naḍr said, “I do not know whether he said forty days, months, or years.” That is the version transmitted by the remainder of the group, and it is likewise the version Aḥmad relates from Ibn ʿUyaynah himself. All of this strengthens the conclusion that the wording preserved by al-Bazzār is in error.