The first person known to have divided hadiths into three categories—authentic, sound, and weak—was Abū ‘Īsā al-Tirmidhī in his Jāmi‘. In his terminology, a sound hadith is one transmitted through multiple chains, whose narrators include no one under suspicion, and which is not anomalous. Ahmad calls hadiths of this kind weak, yet uses them as evidence. Thus, Ahmad illustrated the category of weak hadiths admissible as evidence with the reports of ‘Amr ibn Shu‘ayb, Ibrāhīm al-Hajarī, and others like them. This is discussed at length elsewhere.

The hadiths narrated on this subject—namely, supplicating by invoking created beings themselves—are feeble, weak reports, indeed fabricated ones. None of the imams of Islam used them as evidence or relied upon them. One example is the hadith narrated from ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Hārūn ibn ‘Antarah, from his father, from his grandfather:

“Abū Bakr al-Siddīq came to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and said, ‘I am learning the Quran, but it slips from my memory.’ The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to him, ‘Say: O Allah, I ask You by Muhammad, Your Prophet; by Abraham, Your intimate friend; by Moses, with whom You spoke in confidence; by Jesus, Your spirit and Your word; by the Torah of Moses, the Gospel of Jesus, the Psalms of David, and the Criterion of Muhammad; and by every revelation You have given and every decree You have decreed.’”

He then related the remainder of the hadith. Razīn ibn Mu‘āwiyah al-‘Abdarī included this hadith in his Jāmi‘, and Ibn al-Athīr reproduced it in Jāmi‘ al-Usūl. Neither attributed it to any book by Muslim scholars. It was, however, narrated by those who compiled works on daily and nightly practices, such as Ibn al-Sunnī and Abū Nu‘aym. Books of this kind contain many fabricated hadiths which, by scholarly consensus, may not be relied upon in matters of the Sharia. Shaykh al-Asbahānī also narrated it in his book Fadā’il al-A‘māl (The Merits of Deeds), and in this