“…not strong, and he became unreliable toward the end of his life.”

Because of this very point al-Haythamī declared the report defective, 2/184. For the same reason al-Mundhirī, in al-Targhīb 1/257, hinted at its weakness by prefacing it with the formula, “It is reported,” as he himself explains in his introduction. I therefore included it in al-Ḍaʿīfa, no. 1760, documenting all the chains cited by al-Ḥāfiẓ and others. The meaning of the report, however, is sound as a mawqūf narration from Ibn ʿUmar, recorded by Ibn Abī Shaybah 2/125.

It is possible that al-Ḥāfiẓ considered the hadith strengthened by the corroborating mawqūf report from Ibn ʿUmar found in the Jāmiʿ of Ḥammād b. Salamah. Yet in my view a mawqūf tradition does not provide sufficient support to elevate the status of the marfūʿ one here. Allah knows best.

He next quoted the hadith of Abū al-Dardāʾ, which contains Ubayy’s remark to a man who spoke to him while the Prophet ﷺ was delivering the sermon: “You will gain nothing from your Friday except idle talk,” whereupon the Prophet ﷺ said, “Ubayy has spoken the truth”… the hadith. He added, “Reported by Aḥmad and al-Ṭabarānī.”

I say: Its transmitters are deemed reliable, as al-Haythamī affirmed, but both al-Mundhirī and Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī judged it defective because of a break in the chain, as I clarified in al-Taʿlīq al-Raghīb 1/258. Nonetheless the hadith is authentic, for Ibn Mājah related it with a good isnād from Ubayy himself, stating that Abū Dharr was the one who spoke to him. The report is also found in al-Ṭaḥāwī 1/215 and in al-Ṭayālisī from Abū Hurayrah—with a fair chain, as noted in al-Irwāʾ 2/80—and in Ibn Khuzaymah’s Ṣaḥīḥ, no. 1807, from Abū Dharr directly.

He further said: “Al-Shāfiʿī stated: If a man sneezes on Friday and another person says ‘yarḥamuka’llāh’ to him, I hope that it is permissible, because tashmīt is a sunnah. But if one man greets another with salām, I deem it disliked and hold that he should nevertheless return the greeting, for initiating salām is a sunnah whereas responding to it is obligatory.”

I say: Al-Shawkānī cited this in Nayl al-Awṭār 3/232, quoting from the Mukhtaṣar of al-Buwayṭī. The same text appears in al-Shāfiʿī’s al-Umm 1/175 and in the Mukhtaṣar of al-Muzanī 1/—.