I add: Al-Ḥākim also recorded the report through the route of Jarīr, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, from Muḥārib ibn Dithār, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, who said:

A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked, “Messenger of Allah, which places are the best?” He replied, “I do not know.” The man then asked, “Which places are the worst?” and he again replied, “I do not know.” Gabriel came to him and said, “Ask your Lord.” Gabriel added, “We never ask Him about anything.” The Prophet trembled with a shudder that almost caused him to lose consciousness. When Gabriel ascended, Allah, exalted is He, said, “Muhammad asked you, ‘Which places are the best?’ and you said, ‘I do not know.’ He asked, ‘Which places are the worst?’ and you said, ‘I do not know.’” Gabriel answered, “Yes.” Allah said, “Then inform him that the best places are the mosques and the worst places are the marketplaces.”

Al-Ḥākim judged the hadith to be “sound,” and al-Dhahabī concurred.

The issue al-Haythamī raised regarding ʿAṭāʾ applies here. Al-Dhahabī himself reports in al-Mīzān that Aḥmad said, “Whoever heard from him—meaning ʿAṭāʾ—in his earlier period, his narrations are sound; but whoever heard from him later, they are of no value.” Aḥmad explicitly stated—according to Tahdhīb and other sources—that Jarīr was among those who heard from him after the onset of confusion. Ibn Maʿīn remarked, “He became confused, and what Jarīr and his peers transmitted from him is not among his sound ḥadith.”

Moreover, this particular narration contains phrases that are clearly objectionable and are not attested in the established reports.