and his teacher (1) spoke highly of him. As for al-Jawharī and Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī, they are too well known to need praise, and Aws ibn Ḍamʿaj is trustworthy—Muslim included his reports.
Salmān related that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, gave the Arabs precedence. This can be taken either as a legislative decree or as mere information. If it is a decree, it establishes a binding ruling; if it is information, it is a truthful ḥadīth.
The complete wording of the report has also come through another chain: al-Thawrī narrated from Abū Isḥāq, from Abū Laylā al-Kindī (2), from Salmān al-Fārisī, who said, “You have been preferred over us, O assembly of Arabs, in two matters: we do not lead you in prayer, nor do we marry your women.” It was transmitted by Muḥammad ibn Abī ʿUmar al-ʿAdanī (5), by Saʿīd (6) in his Sunan, and by others.
Most jurists who regard Arab lineage as a criterion of compatibility (kafāʾah) vis-à-vis a non-Arab cite this ḥadīth as evidence. Imām Aḥmad, in one of the two narrations from him, likewise used it to argue that compatibility is not the private right of a particular individual; rather, it is among the general rights governing marriage, to the extent that the contract may be annulled when compatibility is lacking.