people of his time, and he will be among the best of those who strive in the cause of Allah Most High. It has been narrated: “One day under a just ruler is better than sixty years of worship” (1).
In Imam Ahmad’s Musnad (2), the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is reported to have said: “The most beloved of creation to Allah is a just ruler, and the most hated of creation by Allah (3) is an unjust ruler” (4). (5)
In the two Sahih collections (6), Abū Hurayra (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “There are seven whom Allah will shade in His shade on a day when there will be no shade but His: a just ruler; a young man who grew up worshipping Allah; a man whose heart remains attached to the mosque from the time he leaves it until he returns; two men who love one another for Allah’s sake, meeting and parting upon that love; and a man who remembers Allah in solitude and whose eyes overflow with tears,
(1) Recorded by al-Tabarānī in *al-Kabīr* (11932) and *al-Awsat* (4762), Abū Nuaym in *Fadīlat al-Ādilīn* (16), and al-Bayhaqī in *al-Kubrā*, 8/162, and *al-Shuab* (6995), through Ikrima, from Ibn Abbās (may Allah be pleased with them both). Al-Tabarānī said: “No one narrated this hadith from Ikrima except Affān ibn Jubayr. Jafar ibn Awn alone transmitted it, and it is narrated from Ibn Abbās only through this chain.” Al-Haythamī said in *al-Majma*, 6/263: “Its chain contains Zurayq ibn al-Sakht, whom I do not know.” Al-Albānī graded it weak in *al-Silsila al-Daīfa* (989).
(2) (11174).
(3) (Manuscript *yāʾ*): “and the most hateful of them to Him.”
(4) It was also recorded by al-Tirmidhī (1329) and al-Bayhaqī, 10/88, from the hadith of Atiyya al-Awfī, from Abū Saīd al-Khudrī. Al-Tirmidhī said: “This is a *hasan gharīb* hadith, known to us only through this chain.” Ibn al-Qattān said in *Bayān al-Wahm*, 4/363: “Atiyya al-Awfī is regarded as weak, though Ibn Maīn called him acceptable; the hadith is therefore *hasan*.”
(5) This paragraph is absent from manuscript *fāʾ*.
(6) Al-Bukhārī (660) and Muslim (1031).