595 – Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “It was asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, what is ‘the way’?’ He replied, ‘Provision and a mount.’ ” Narrated by al-Dāraqutnī; al-Hākim declared it authentic, but the preferred verdict is that it is mursal (1). Al-Tirmidhī also recorded it through the narration of Ibn ʿUmar, yet its chain is weak (2).

Status of the hadith:
The hadith is weak. Shaykh al-Albānī examined its transmission chains in detail, reviewed the judgments of earlier scholars, and concluded: “In short, every route for this hadith is feeble—some even more so than others—and the best of them is the mursal route of al-Hasan al-Basrī. None of the connected isnāds is sound enough to support it, because they are all too weak.”

It appears that Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—did not give these narrations and their chains the critical attention they deserve; in his commentary on al-ʿUmda he listed them and then said: “These chains, whether musnad, mursal, or mawqūf, indicate that the determining factor for obligation is provision and a mount.”

I say: not one of those chains is ḥasan, nor even weak-but-repairable, so take heed.

Ibn al-Mundhir said: “No fully connected report on the question is established; the soundest version is the mursal narration of al-Hasan.”

Vocabulary of the hadith:
– al-sabīl (the way): sabīl literally means “path” and is used for anything by which one attains a goal, and it is