He answered, “He was praying while letting his izār trail, and Allah does not accept the prayer of a man whose garment hangs down.” Narrated by Abū Dāwūd with a sound chain according to the criteria of Muslim (1).

802 – Qays ibn Bishr al-Taghlibī said: My father—who used to sit in the company of Abū al-Dardāʾ—told me: In Damascus there was a man from the Prophet’s Companions ﷺ known as Ibn al-Ḥanẓaliyyah. He was a solitary man (2); he did not keep people’s company. His time was devoted to prayer, and when he finished he engaged in nothing but tasbīḥ and takbīr (3) until he reached his family.

He passed by us while we were with Abū al-Dardāʾ, and Abū al-Dardāʾ said to him, “Give us a word that will benefit us and not harm you.” He replied, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ dispatched a detachment (4). When it returned, one of its men came and sat in the place where the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would sit. He said to the man beside him, ‘If only you had seen us when we met the enemy: so-and-so charged and thrust, saying, “Take this from me—I am the youth of Ghifār!” What do you think of what he said?’ He answered, ‘I see nothing (5) but that his reward has been nullified.’ Another man heard and said, ‘I see no problem with that.’ They argued until the Messenger of Allah ﷺ heard of it and said, ‘Glory be to Allah! There is no harm in a man receiving reward and being praised.’

I saw Abū al-Dardāʾ delighted by this; he kept lifting his head toward him and asking, ‘Did you hear that from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ?’ He would reply, ‘Yes,’ and Abū al-Dardāʾ went on repeating the question until I thought he would fall to his knees.

The man passed by us another day, and Abū al-Dardāʾ again said to him, ‘A word that will benefit us and not harm you.’ He said, ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ told us: “The one who spends on horses (6) is like a man who keeps his hand extended in charity, never …”’