His words: “10 – On the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: the Prophet ﷺ prayed in a single garment, using its excess length to protect himself from the heat and cold of the ground. Reported by Aḥmad with a sound chain.”

I say: Not at all; it is neither sound nor even fair, for every route of transmission rests on Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAbbās, and he is weak, as stated in al-Taqrīb. See al-Musnad 2320, 2385, 2760, 2940, and 3327.

It appears that the author—true to form—assumed the chain to be authentic on the strength of al-Haythamī’s remark in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid 2/48: “It was narrated by Aḥmad, Abū Yaʿlā, and al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr and al-Awsat, and the men in Aḥmad’s isnād are those of the Ṣaḥīḥ.”

Such a conclusion is unwarranted, as I have pointed out repeatedly and clarified in the introduction—even supposing al-Haythamī’s statement that “the men in Aḥmad’s chain are those of the Ṣaḥīḥ” were accurate. It is not, for, as noted above, the narration hinges on Ḥusayn, and he is not among the transmitters cited by al-Bukhārī or Muslim.

His statement under number 11: “While the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was praying, a boy passed in front of him, so he motioned with his hand like this and the boy turned back. Then a girl passed in front of him and he motioned with his hand like this and she continued on. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ finished the prayer he said, ‘They are more persistent.’ Reported by Imām Aḥmad and it is in the Sunan.”

I say: Ibn al-Qayyim cited it in exactly this form in Zad al-Maʿād, and the author has followed him. Two criticisms apply to them both:

First: Attributing it to “the Sunan” suggests that it occurs in all four Sunan collections, whereas in fact none of them narrate it except Ibn Mājah alone.

Second: Its chain is weak; it contains an unidentified narrator. Because of this, Ibn al-Qaṭṭān and al-Būṣayrī declared it weak.