420 — (Ibn Umar reported: The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—ascended the pulpit and called out in a loud voice: “O you who have professed Islam with your tongues while faith has not penetrated your hearts! Do not harm the Muslims or seek out their private faults. Whoever seeks out the private fault of his Muslim brother, Allah will seek out his fault; and whoever has his fault sought out by Allah, He will disgrace him, even in the innermost part of his own home.” Al-Tirmidhī and Ibn Mājah narrated a similar report.) p. 307.

Fair. Al-Tirmidhī (1/365) and Ibn Hibbān (1494) narrated it through Awfā ibn Dalham, from Nāfi, from Ibn Umar. Al-Tirmidhī said: “A fair, singular hadith.” I say: Its chain is fair. Its narrators are reliable and are among Muslim’s narrators, with the exception of Awfā ibn Dalham. Abū Hātim said: “I do not know who he is.” Al-Nasāī said: “Reliable,” and Ibn Hibbān included him in al-Thiqāt. A number of narrators transmitted from him. The hadith of someone such as him is therefore fair at the very least. Al-Hāfiz alluded to this when he said in al-Taqrīb: “Truthful.”

The hadith has three corroborating reports that lend it further strength. The first is from Abū Barza, narrated by Abū Dāwūd and Ahmad (4/420–421, 424). The second is the hadith of Thawbān, also narrated by Ahmad. Its narrators are reliable and are among the narrators of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, with the exception of Umm Mūsā, who was Alī’s bondwoman—may Allah be pleased with him. Al-Dhahabī said: “Mughīra ibn Miqsam alone narrated from her. Al-Dāraqutnī said that her hadith may be cited by way of corroboration.” I say: Al-Ijlī also said: “A reliable Kufan Successor.” This was al-Haythamī’s basis for categorically declaring her reliable. He said: “Ahmad, Abū Yalā, and al-Tabarānī narrated it. Their narrators are narrators of the Sahīh, apart from Umm Mūsā, and she is reliable.” That categorical assertion is subject to what you have learned: Mughīra alone narrated from her, and al-Ijlī, like Ibn Hibbān, was lenient in declaring narrators reliable.

As for the third, al-Tayālisī (1077) said: Shuba narrated to us, from Muāwiya ibn Qurra, that Ibn Masūd went to the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—with a tooth-stick, whereupon they began looking at the thinness of his shank … and then related a similar hadith. This is an authentic mursal chain of transmission. A narrator other than Abū Dāwūd al-Tayālisī also transmitted it from Shuba, from Muāwiya ibn Qurra, from his father, as its compiler, Yūnus ibn Habīb, mentioned.