29 – Abu Hurayrah — may Allah be pleased with him — reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Had I not feared that it would overburden my community, I would have ordered them to use the siwāk (tooth-stick) with every ablution.” It was recorded by Mālik, Aḥmad, and al-Nasāʾī; Ibn Khuzaymah declared it authentic, and al-Bukhārī cited it in suspended form. ⦗1⦘

Degree of authenticity
This ḥadith is ṣaḥīḥ. Al-Bukhārī (887) and Muslim (252) also transmit it from Abu Hurayrah, but with the wording, “with every prayer.” Ibn Mundah said, “Its chain is unanimously recognised as sound,” and several Companions relate ḥadiths of the same purport: ʿAlī, Zayd ibn Khālid, Umm Ḥabībah, ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr, Sahl ibn Saʿd, Jābir, Anas, Abu Ayyūb, Ibn ʿAbbās, and ʿĀʾishah.

Ibn al-Mulaqqin remarks in al-Badr al-Munīr that more than one hundred narrations have been recorded concerning the siwāk.

Regarding the wording “with every ablution,” it appears in the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik, narrated from Ibn Shihāb, from Ḥumayd, from Abu Hurayrah; the same chain is found in Aḥmad’s and al-Nasāʾī’s collections, and it is authentic.

Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī states in al-Muḥarrar: “From Abu Hurayrah, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared, ‘Had I not feared hardship for my ummah, I would have commanded them to use the siwāk with every ablution.’ All its narrators are leading, trustworthy authorities.”

Vocabulary of the ḥadith
• lowlā: a conditional particle indicating that the non-occurrence of the second clause is due to the existence of the first.