one prayer performed therein is worth a thousand prayers offered elsewhere.” They asked, “What do you say about someone who is unable to undertake the journey or reach it?” He replied, “Let him send oil to be burned in its lamps, for whoever sends a gift to it is like one who has prayed in it.”

This narration comes through Maymūnah bint Saʿd, the Prophet’s freedwoman. She said, “O Messenger of Allah, instruct us regarding Bayt al-Maqdis.” He said, “It is the land where people will be gathered and resurrected; go to it…,” and so on.

Aḥmad recorded the hadith (6/463), as did Ibn Mājah (1/429–430), through the chain of ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus who said: Thawr related to us from Ziyād ibn Abī Sawdah, from his brother ʿUthmān ibn Abī Sawdah, from her.

This isnād is ḥasan, if not ṣaḥīḥ. Its transmitters are all trustworthy—the narrators relied upon by al-Bukhārī—except for Ziyād ibn Abī Sawdah and his brother ʿUthmān, and both are deemed reliable in al-Taqrīb. Ibn Ḥibbān and others graded them trustworthy, and a number of reputable scholars have transmitted from each of them.

Al-Haythamī quoted the report (4/6–7) through the route of Abū Yaʿlā and remarked, “Its narrators are trustworthy.”

Al-Dhahabī, however, differed. In his biographical notice on ʿUthmān ibn Abī Sawdah he wrote, “He was declared reliable by Marwān al-Ṭāhirī—though the correct reading is probably al-Ṭāṭarī—and by Ibn Ḥibbān, yet I still feel some hesitation about adducing his narrations as proof.” He likewise said of his brother Ziyād—after citing this very hadith on his authority—