Abū ʿUbayd Allāh may be Muslim ibn Mishkam al-Dimashqī. If so, he is reliable; but if he is someone else, I do not know him.

In summary, the sounder view concerning this hadith is that it is Salman’s own statement, as the Commander of the Faithful in hadith, al-Bukhārī, stated categorically. We have found no other strong route by which the version traced back to the Prophet could be deemed preponderant. However, this hadith is similar in meaning to the preceding one, which renders this report unnecessary. Allah knows best.

4 — (He—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said):

“Allah has prescribed obligations, so do not neglect them; He has set limits, so do not transgress them; He has forbidden certain things, so do not violate them; and He has remained silent about certain things out of mercy toward you—not out of forgetfulness—so do not inquire into them.” (Narrated by al-Dāraqutnī and graded acceptable by al-Nawawī.) p. 21

Weak. Al-Dāraqutnī narrated it in his Sunan (p. 502), as did al-Bayhaqī (10/12–13), Abū Bakr al-Dhakwānī in Twelve Sessions (fol. 1/12), Ibn al-Sammāk in his Hadith Collection (2/12/2), al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī in al-Faqīh wa-l-Mutafaqqih (fol. 2/160), Muhammad ibn Muhammad Abū al-Futūh al-Tāʾī in al-Arbaʿīn (fol. 2/31, hadith 16), and Ibn Batta in al-Ibāna (2/126/1), through several routes from Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind, from Makhūl, from Abū Thaʿlaba al-Khushanī, who said: The Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said—and he cited the hadith.

I say: The transmitters in this chain are reliable and are among those used by Muslim. It nevertheless has two defects, as al-Hāfiz Ibn Rajab stated in Commentary on al-Nawawī’s Forty Hadith (p. 200). The first is that it has not been established that Makhūl heard from Abū Thaʿlaba. The same was stated by Abū