one can repay Your blessings, nor can any speaker praise You as You deserve.” (1)
Thus, “O Allah, to You belongs all praise—abundant praise, enduring for as long as You endure. To You belongs all praise—praise with no limit short of Your knowledge. To You belongs all praise—praise with no limit short of Your will. To You belongs all praise—praise for which the one who utters it seeks no reward but Your pleasure.” (2)
I bear witness that none has the right to be worshipped except Allah alone, without partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger, the foremost of those who praise Allah, eminent among those who give thanks, and the bearer of the banner of praise on the Day of Resurrection. May Allah bestow blessings and abundant peace upon him, his family, and his Companions until the Day of Judgment.
To proceed:
Among the acts that draw one nearest to Allah, the finest virtues, and the most rightful duties is the servant’s devoting himself
(1) Reported from ʿAlī (may Allah be pleased with him), both as marfūʿ (attributed to the Prophet) and as mawqūf (attributed to ʿAlī himself).
The marfūʿ version was recorded by Abū Yaʿlā in his Musnad, no. 440; its chain of transmission is weak.
The mawqūf version was recorded by Ibn Fudayl al-Dabbī in al-Duʿāʾ, no. 69; Ibn Abī Shayba in al-Musannaf, 10/229, no. 9306; and al-Tabarānī in al-Duʿāʾ, no. 734.
Al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, in Kanz al-ʿUmmāl, 2/640, no. 4963, also attributed it to Jaʿfar in al-Dhikr and to Abū al-Qāsim Ismāʿīl ibn Muhammad ibn Fadl in his Amālī.
Taken together, its chains of transmission render it hasan (sound), Allah willing.
(2) Recorded by al-Bayhaqī in Shuʿab al-Īmān, no. 4079, from ʿAlī (may Allah be pleased with him), as a marfūʿ report. He commented afterward: “There is a break in its chain between ʿAlī and the subsequent transmitters.”
Al-Albānī graded it weak in Daʿīf al-Targhīb wa-l-Tarhīb, nos. 968 and 982.
Abū Nuʿaym recorded it in al-Hilya, 8/223, as a saying of Muhammad ibn al-Nadr al-Hārithī, as did al-Hāfiz Ibn Hajar through him in Natāʾij al-Afkār, 3/289–290.