he replied, “The distance between one rank and the next is five hundred years.” (1)
Ninth: the arrow will be a light on the Day of Resurrection.
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Yaʿqūb al-Qarrāb relates in his book “The Merit of Archery” (2), on the authority of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyyah, who said: “I saw Abū ʿAmrah al-Anṣārī—a Companion who fought at both Badr and Uḥud—twisting from thirst; then he said, ‘I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: Whoever shoots an arrow in the path of Allah, whether it strikes its mark or falls short, that arrow will become light for him on the Day of Resurrection.’ ”
Abū Yaʿqūb (3) added: “We have likewise been narrated—through more than ten different chains whose full listing would lengthen this work—from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: Whoever shoots an arrow in the path of …”
(1) In Fadl al-Rami, no. 21. The report contains an error, for it includes the unusual phrase, “the distance between the two degrees is five hundred years.”
(2) Recorded as no. 25; also by al-Tabarani, al-Muʿjam al-Kabir, 22/no. 591, and by Abu Nuaym, Maʿrifat al-Sahabah, 5/nos. 6904–6906. The hadith is narrated solely by Abd al-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Abd Allah al-Fazari, al-Arzami, who is weak, especially in the reports he transmits on his own; see Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid, 5/270.
(3) In Fadaʾil al-Rami, no. 27. A version of this wording is attributed to Abu Hurayrah and was cited by al-Bazzar in his Musnad, 2/no. 1707 (Kashf al-Astar). It is very weak: the chain rests exclusively on Humayd al-Makki, the client of Ibn Alqamah, from Ata; Humayd is unknown and is not corroborated in his narrations. Moreover, al-Bazzar’s own shaykh is unidentified—al-Haythami states, “I do not know him.” See Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid, 5/270, and Tahdhib al-Kamal, 7/415.