(17) ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) once plucked something from a man’s beard—or from his head. The man said to him, “May Allah ward off all evil from you.” ʿUmar replied, “Ever since we embraced Islam, Allah has already warded evil off from us. Rather, when someone removes something from you, say: ‘May your hands be blessed for what they have taken.’” Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib, 7th ed., p. 195/89. The Shaykh (may Allah have mercy on him) wrote: “A mawqūf report with a sound chain; Ibn al-Sunnī recorded it.” He later added in the Maʿārif printing, p. 176/241: “Were it not that its transmitter ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bakr al-Bāhilī never met ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, it would be sound; in fact it is mursal.” Consequently he deleted the narration from Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib (Maʿārif).

(18) Ḥafṣah, Mother of the Believers (may Allah be pleased with her), reported that when the Prophet ﷺ intended to lie down, he would place his right hand beneath his cheek and say, “O Allah, protect me from Your punishment on the Day You resurrect Your servants,” three times. Al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib (Maʿārif) nos. 36–37, pp. 78–79. Abū Dāwūd transmitted it, and al-Tirmidhī graded it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. The Shaykh affirmed that judgment, adding: “Abū Dāwūd does not mention the phrase ‘three times’; it appears only in the ḥadith of Ḥafṣah, and even there its authenticity is questionable, as I clarified in al-Ṣaḥīḥah no. 2754.”

(19) “Supplication is not rejected between the adhan and the iqāmah.” They said, “O Messenger of Allah, what should we ask for?” He replied, “Ask Allah for well-being.” Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib, 7th ed., p. 61, with the wording, “A supplication is not turned back ….” Al-Tirmidhī classed it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. In the Maʿārif edition, p. 75, the Shaykh remarked: “In this complete wording it is weak: Yaḥyā ibn al-Yamān and Zayd al-ʿAmmī are both weak. Reliable transmitters report it from al-ʿAmmī without the additional words, ‘They said ….’ That addition has no corroboration and is objectionable. The authentic core is simply, ‘Supplication is not rejected between the adhan and the iqāmah,’ and in that wording I deemed it sound from al-Tirmidhī; see Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl no. 244.” In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib, 8th ed. (Maʿārif), p. 59, the extraneous clause has been removed.

(20) “Whoever retires to his bed in a state of purity and remembers Allah (until drowsiness overtakes him), then whenever he turns over during the night and asks Allah for something of the good of this world or the next, Allah will grant it to him.” Al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib, 3rd ed., no. 43. Al-Tirmidhī said, “ḥasan gharīb.” The Shaykh commented: “That is correct, or even higher, for it has supporting chains from several Companions; consult al-Targhīb if you wish.” He later wrote in the Maʿārif printing, p. 82/44: “It later became clear to me that those supports are deficient; none of them, for example, contains the phrase ‘and remembers Allah until drowsiness overtakes him.’ Without that phrase the ḥadith is ṣaḥīḥ.” Accordingly, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib (Maʿārif) no. 36 omits the words “until drowsiness overtakes him.”

(21) “When a man enters his house he should say: ‘O Allah, I ask You for the best of entrances and the best of exits. In the name of Allah we enter and in the name of Allah we leave; upon Allah, our Lord, we rely.’ He should then greet his family with salām.” Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ no. 839; Mishkāt no. 2444; al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib, 3rd ed., p. 61; recorded by Abū Dāwūd. The Shaykh at first said, “Its chain is sound.” He later noted in al-Kalim (Maʿārif), p. 91/62: “It has become clear to me that the chain is munqaṭiʿ (broken).” He pointed out that the report appears in al-Ṣaḥīḥah no. 225 and removed it from the Maʿārif edition. See also Abū Dāwūd no. 5096 and Hidāyat al-Ruwāt no. 2378.

(22) Abū Hurayrah narrates—traced back to the Prophet ﷺ—“When one of you rises for the night prayer, let him open his prayer with two light rakʿahs.” Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl 2/202/no. 453; transmitted by Aḥmad, Muslim, and Abū Dāwūd. In al-Ṣaḥīḥah no. 3199 the wording is: “Whenever he rose for the night prayer he would begin with two light rakʿahs.” The Shaykh wrote: “In Irwāʾ I presented it as marfūʿ and inclined toward preferring the marfūʿ form over the mawqūf in accordance with the rule that the additional wording of a trustworthy narrator is accepted. Later, for two reasons, the mawqūf version appeared stronger to me, so I placed it in Ḍaʿīf Abū Dāwūd no. 240.” See also Ḍaʿīf al-Jāmiʿ no. 619, Mishkāt no. 1194, Hidāyah no. 1152, and Mukhtaṣar al-Shamāʾil no. 227.

(23) Abū Rāfiʿ (may Allah be pleased with him) said, “I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ call the adhan in the ear of al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī when Fāṭimah (may Allah be pleased with her) gave birth to him.” Al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib, 3rd ed., p. 210. Al-Tirmidhī graded it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. The Shaykh observed: “Its chain is weak, yet it becomes ḥasan through the supporting narration which al-Bayhaqī related in Shuʿab al-Īmān from Ibn ʿAbbās.” He later wrote in the Maʿārif edition, p. 162/211: “Subsequently I discovered that the supporting chain contains two accused narrators; I therefore treated the report in al-Ḍaʿīfah no. 6121. The ḥadith of Abū Rāfiʿ remains weak and should be removed from Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib.” See Irwāʾ no. 1173, Abū Dāwūd no. 5105, Tirmidhī no. 1514, and al-Ḍaʿīfah (Maʿārif) 1/493–494 under no. 321. Nevertheless, the narration has not been deleted from Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kalim al-Ṭayyib, 8th ed. (Maʿārif), p. 168—Allah knows best.