Musa ibn Harun said, “He is accused with regard to hadith.” Ibn ʿAdi added, “Weak—he steals hadith.” Judgments of this caliber from such leading critics topple his narration and render it feeble, all the more so since others have transmitted the report only as a mawqūf tradition.

Fourth: Thābit ibn Muḥammad al-Zāhid—although al-Bukhārī relates from him—was himself placed by al-Bukhārī in the list of weak narrators, and others declared him weak on account of his memory. Hence al-Ḥāfiẓ (Ibn Ḥajar) says in al-Taqrīb: “Truthful, but he makes mistakes.”

Under the heading “2. Encouragement to Discharge It,” the author writes: “Aḥmad narrated with a sound chain from Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) that a man from the tribe of Tamīm came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said, … ‘What should I do? How should I spend?’ The Messenger of Allah ﷺ replied, ‘You take the zakah out of your wealth, for it is a purification that purifies you. It enables you to maintain kinship ties, and through it you will come to recognize the right of the poor person, the neighbor, and the beggar.’ ”

I say: I have not found anyone who explicitly declared this hadith authentic. The compiler judged it sound on the basis of al-Mundhirī’s statement, “Its transmitters are the transmitters of the Ṣaḥīḥ,” and al-Haythamī said the same. Yet that alone does not guarantee authenticity, for another condition may still be lacking, as we explained in the introduction. That is exactly the case here, because the requirement of an unbroken chain is missing. In the Musnad 3 / 136 the report comes through Saʿīd ibn Abī Hilāl from Anas, and Saʿīd never heard from Anas, as stated in Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb; therefore the isnād is broken.