of you stand in a place where someone is wrongfully struck, for the curse descends upon those present when they fail to defend him.” Abū Nuʿaym said:

“This is a singular hadith among the reports of Asad and ʿIkrimah. To my knowledge, no one narrated it from Asad except Mandal ibn ʿAlī al-ʿAnazī.”

I say: He is weak, as the hadith master stated categorically in al-Taqrīb. Al-ʿUqaylī identified his teacher Asad as the defect, saying: “He is unknown. He narrated from ʿIkrimah a hadith for which he has no corroboration. Mandal, however, comes after him in the chain, so perhaps the fault lies with Mandal.” He then cited this hadith in Asad’s entry.

Al-Haythamī said in al-Majmaʿ (8/284): “Al-Tabarānī narrated it. Its chain includes Asad ibn ʿAtā’, concerning whom al-Azdī said: ‘Unknown.’ Mandal was declared trustworthy by Abū Hātim and others, but Ahmad and others declared him weak. The remainder of its narrators are trustworthy.”

I say: From this, you can see that al-Mundhirī’s statement in al-Targhīb (3/207)—from which the compiler quoted—“Al-Tabarānī and al-Bayhaqī narrated it with a good chain of transmission,” is not a sound assessment. How could its chain be good when it contains both a weak narrator and an unknown narrator?

Al-Tabarānī also narrated (3/91/2), through a feeble chain, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Your Lord says: ‘By My might and majesty, I shall surely exact retribution from the wrongdoer, both sooner and later; and I shall surely exact retribution from anyone who sees an oppressed person and is able to support him but fails to do so.’”

449—(He (peace be upon him) said: “Whoever kills a person under covenant will not smell the fragrance of Paradise (that is, he will not smell it), even though its fragrance can be detected from a distance of forty years’ travel.” Al-Bukhārī and others.) p. 317