Muhammad ibn Amr, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah, who reported that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Only one who continually turns to Allah maintains the midmorning prayer.” Al-Hākim said: This is a chain of transmission of the kind Muslim ibn al-Hajjāj relied upon as evidence (1). For he narrated from his teachers (2), from Muhammad ibn Amr, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Allah listens to nothing as He listens (3) to a prophet reciting the Quran melodiously.”
He said: Perhaps someone may object (4): Hammād ibn Salamah and Abd al-Azīz ibn Muhammad al-Darāwardī transmitted it from Muhammad ibn Amr with an incomplete chain. The reply would be: Khālid ibn Abd Allāh is trustworthy, and an addition transmitted by a trustworthy narrator is accepted.
Al-Hākim then narrated (5): Abdān ibn Yazīd narrated to us; Muhammad ibn al-Mughīrah al-Sukkarī narrated to us; al-Qāsim ibn al-Hakam al-Uranī (6) narrated to us; Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Yamāmī (7) narrated to us,
(1) In his Sahīh, following (793/234), he transmits the same report from his teachers Yahyā ibn Ayyūb, Qutaybah ibn Sa‘īd, and Ibn Hajar: “Ismā‘īl—that is, Ibn Ja‘far—narrated to us, from Muhammad ibn ‘Amr …” The narrators in the chain up to Muhammad ibn ‘Amr are all trustworthy leading authorities, unlike al-Hākim’s chain, which has its shortcomings.
(2) S: “his teacher.”
(3) Mb: mā adhina (“as He listens”), as also in the Maymaniyyah edition and subsequent editions. This is Muslim’s wording.
(4) Al-Hākim is referring to Ibn Khuzaymah’s explanation of the hadith’s defect. Al-Bukhārī also identified a defect in it in al-Tārīkh al-kabīr, in the entry on Ismā‘īl ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Zurārah (1/366), stating that it is mawqūf, stopping at Abū Salamah as his own statement. In any event, the defect lies with the narrator transmitting from Khālid ibn ‘Abd Allāh, namely Ismā‘īl ibn ‘Abd Allāh, who has some weakness. Thus, al-Hākim’s statement, “An addition transmitted by a trustworthy narrator is accepted,” has no force here.
(5) Al-Tabarānī also transmitted it in al-Awsat (5060), through Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Yamāmī. He is the source of its defect: he is matrūk (abandoned as a narrator) and munkar al-hadīth (a narrator of objectionable hadiths), as will be explained in the author’s discussion. See also al-Albānī’s al-Da‘īfah (392, 5065).
(6) Al-‘Uranī is thus vocalized in Mb. All other manuscripts read al-‘Adanī, with d, a scribal error.
(7) All manuscripts except S, J, and Mb read al-Yamānī, a scribal error.