Abū Ḥātim said, “His ḥadith may be recorded,” while al-Azdī regarded him as somewhat weak. His narrations appear in the four Sunan collections.
- I say: Al-Azdī’s attempt to weaken him is of no consequence, for al-Azdī himself is criticized, as is well known. Moreover, Ibn Maʿīn—as you have seen—declared the man reliable, and the same verdict was issued by Imām al-Bukhārī, al-Nasāʾī, Ibn Ḥibbān, and Ibn Shāhīn, as recorded in Tahdhīb. Agreement therefore leans toward his uprightness, save for Abū Ḥātim’s remark, “his ḥadith is written.” Should that statement be taken as a clear disparagement, it cannot be accepted, for it is an unexplained critique that contradicts the judgment of the other leading authorities who declared him trustworthy. One may reconcile Abū Ḥātim’s words with their endorsement by understanding that—in his estimation—the man occupied a middle rank; such a narrator produces ḥasan ḥadith at the very least. Al-Ḥāfiẓ appears to allude to this in al-Taqrīb when he writes of him: “ṣadūq” (reliable).
All the remaining transmitters in the chain are trustworthy, so the isnād is sound. Furthermore, he is not the only one who mentioned that the soil was created on Saturday and the rest on the following days; Muslim and others transmitted it via another route from Abū Hurayrah, which I have documented in al-Ṣaḥīḥah, no. 1833. Some imagined that this conflicts with the verse cited at the beginning of the report—the opening of Sūrah al-Sajdah—but that is not the case, as I explained in my notes on al-Mishkāt, no. 5735. In short, the seven days in the ḥadith are distinct from the six days in the Qurʾān; the ḥadith simply supplies additional detail about what Allah carried out on the earth. It therefore complements the Qurʾān and does not contradict it. I reached this reconciliation before I encountered al-Akhdar’s narration, which explicitly confirms the same conclusion. Praise be to Allah, by whose grace righteous deeds are perfected.
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Ḥadith of Jābir ibn Samurah: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ came out to us and said, “Will you not form rows as the angels do before their Lord?” They asked, “Messenger of Allah, how do the angels form rows before their Lord?” He replied, “They complete the front row and keep close together within the row.” Muslim recorded it.
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Muʿādh ibn Jabal reported: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, “Those who love one another for Allah’s sake—Allah will shade them beneath the shade of His Throne on a day when there is no shade but His shade.”
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Authentic ḥadith. It was recorded by Aḥmad (5/229, 236–237), Ibn Ḥibbān (2510), and al-Ḥākim (4/169–170), as well as Ibn al-Mubārak in al-Zuhd (715), through two sound chains leading back to him.