786 – Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Pay the laborer his wage before his sweat dries.” Reported by Ibn Mājah (1).

There are additional narrations: from Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) in the collections of Abū Yaʿlā and al-Bayhaqī (2), and from Jābir in al-Ṭabarānī’s Musnad (3). All of these supporting chains are weak.

Hadith grading:
The hadith is ḥasan.

Ibn Mājah recorded it through the chain of Ibn ʿUmar that contains ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Zayd ibn Aslam, from his father, from his grandfather. Al-Ṭaḥāwī said: “According to the scholars of hadith, the report of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is at the extreme end of weakness.”

Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it from Jābir with a chain that includes Sharqī ibn Quṭāmī, who is weak. Abū Yaʿlā, Ibn ʿAdī, and al-Bayhaqī transmitted it from Abū Hurayrah.

Ibn Ḥajar remarked in Bulūgh al-Marām: “All of its chains are weak.”

Shaykh al-Albānī, however, surveyed the various routes, analyzed them, and concluded: “In sum, the hadith is, in my judgment, authentically transmitted through the first route, that of Abū Hurayrah. Once this is reinforced by the mursal of ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār and several other connected chains whose weakness is not severe, no researcher well-versed in this science will retain any doubt about the hadith’s authenticity.” This is precisely what al-Mundhirī expressed in al-Targhīb when he said: