He said, “Its chain of transmission is weak; in it is Baziʿ Abū al-Khalīl, and he is extremely weak.”
I say: Al-Haythamī cited this ḥadīth of Ibn Masʿūd in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid with the same wording and commented: “It was narrated by al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr, and in its chain is Baziʿ Abū al-Khalīl, who has been accused of fabrication.”
Al-Dhahabī says in al-Mīzān: “He is suspected. Ibn Ḥibbān said: ‘He reports from trustworthy narrators things that are fabricated, as though he deliberately forges them.’ ” Al-Dhahabī then listed some of his ḥadīths—this one among them—and added: “Ibn ʿAdī said: ‘He has such rejected reports (munkar) for which no one corroborates him.’ ”
Yet al-Munḏirī recorded the ḥadīth in al-Targhīb with the wording:
“From ʿAbdullāh—that is, Ibn Masʿūd (may Allah be pleased with him)—who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, ‘There will appear at the end of time people whose conversation in their mosques is about worldly matters; Allah has no need of them.’ ” It was narrated by Ibn Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ.
From this it appears that Abū al-Khalīl was not the sole transmitter of the report, for two reasons:
-
Ibn Ḥibbān spoke exceedingly harshly of him, as you have just heard, so it is most unlikely that he would include a narration of his in his Ṣaḥīḥ. He must therefore have related the ḥadīth through another chain, which points to that conclusion.
-
Al-Munḏirī opened the citation with the phrase “and from (wa-ʿan),” which signals that the report is sound, or