as well (2/90), Ibn Mājah (3205), and Ahmad (5/56–57), through Yūnus ibn Ubayd, from al-Hasan, from Abdullah ibn Mughaffal, who said: “The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said…” and then quoted the hadith. Al-Tirmidhī said: “A good and authentic hadith.”

I say: Its narrators are trustworthy narrators of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, except that al-Hasan—that is, al-Basrī—practised concealment in transmission and narrated it here using the non-explicit formula “from.” However, Ahmad (5/54) transmitted it: Wakī narrated to us, from Abū Sufyān ibn al-Alā, who said: I heard al-Hasan relate that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said… and then quoted the hadith. He added: A man then asked him, “Abū Saīd, from whom did you hear this?” He replied: “Abdullah ibn Mughaffal narrated it to me”—and he swore to this—“from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, such-and-such a time ago. Indeed, he narrated it to us in that gathering.”

I say: This is a continuous chain of transmission whose narrators are trustworthy narrators of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, with the exception of Abū Sufyān ibn al-Alā. He is not Qutba ibn al-Alā al-Ghanawī, who is weak, but another man. Ibn Abī Hātim mentioned him in his book (4/2/381) with this chain and said: “Yahyā ibn Saīd al-Qattān said: I used to wish that I could hear from Abū Sufyān the hadith of al-Hasan from Abdullah ibn Mughaffal, for in it he would say: ‘Ibn Mughaffal narrated to me.’” He mentioned neither criticism nor accreditation of him.

Al-Hakam ibn Atiyya corroborated his report that al-Hasan explicitly stated that Ibn Mughaffal had narrated it to him. He said: I asked al-Hasan about a man who keeps a dog in his house. He replied: “Abdullah ibn Mughaffal narrated to me that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: ‘Whoever keeps a dog has one qīrāt deducted from his reward every day.’” Ahmad transmitted it (5/56). It was for this reason that Ahmad and Ibn Abī Hātim, reporting from his father, stated categorically that al-Hasan had heard from Ibn Mughaffal.

The hadith in its basic form is also found in Muslim (1/162) and elsewhere, through another route from Ibn Mughaffal, who said:

“The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, ordered that dogs be killed. He then said: ‘What is the matter with them and with dogs?!’ He subsequently granted a concession for hunting dogs and sheepdogs…”

This hadith has two corroborating reports that lend it strength, both cited by al-Haythamī in Majma al-Zawā’id