1342 – Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both) reported that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “The believer who associates with people and patiently endures their harm is better than the one who neither associates with them nor endures their harm.” Ibn Mājah transmitted it with a good isnād, and it is also found in al-Tirmidhī, though he did not name the Companion (1).

• Degree of authenticity:
  The ḥadith is ḥasan (good).
  Al-Munāwī said: Aḥmad, al-Bukhārī in al-Adab al-Mufrad, and al-Tirmidhī all recorded it with a sound chain from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, but al-Tirmidhī did not identify the Companion; he merely said, “from an elder among the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ.”
  Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿIrāqī remarked that the transmission route is single and has rightly been graded ḥasan; al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar likewise said in Fatḥ al-Bārī that its isnād is ḥasan, and he affirmed the same judgment here in Bulūgh al-Marām.

• Scholarly disagreement:
  There are two paths: withdrawing from people and keeping away from them, or mixing with them. These are the two positions held by scholars and by those concerned with spiritual discipline, and presenting these two views suffices as an explanation of this ḥadith.

Al-Khaṭṭābī said in his book al-ʿUzla (Seclusion):
“People have differed over whether seclusion or mingling with others is more virtuous, even though each of the two carries its own benefits and dangers. Those devoted to asceticism chose seclusion, among them Sufyān al-Thawrī, Ibrāhīm ibn Adham,”