I then continued my investigation and located another route for the narration, transmitted by Mubārak ibn Saʿīd—the brother of Sufyān ibn Saʿīd—who said: “Saʿīd ibn Masrūq narrated to us from Ayyūb ibn Karīz, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm, from Muʿādh ibn Jabal …” The report is lengthy and contains the very passage under discussion.
Al-Ṭabarānī brought it (20/73–74) through two routes from Mubārak.
All the men in the chain are reliable and listed in Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb, except for Ayyūb ibn Karīz who is mentioned only in this isnād. Nevertheless, Ibn Ḥibbān placed him among the trustworthy (6/54). He is therefore obscure (mastūr), and his narration is strengthened by the corroboration of Shahr ibn Ḥawshab, who also relates it from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm.
Imām Aḥmad recorded it as well—both in full and in abridged form—(5/235, 236, 245).
Shaykh al-Albānī later authenticated part of the report in Ṣaḥīḥ Mawārid al-Ẓamʾān, where he cited it (1/105, no. 20):
“From Muʿādh ibn Jabal, from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. I said, ‘Tell me of an action that will admit me to Paradise.’ He replied, ‘Bravo, bravo! You have asked about something tremendous, yet it is easy for anyone to whom Allah grants ease: establish the prescribed prayers, give the obligatory zakat, and do not associate anything with Allah.’”
He graded it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ—see his notes on al-Īmān by Ibn Abī Shaybah (2/2–3) and on al-Iḥsān (1/218). End of the quotation from Ṣaḥīḥ Mawārid.
4/ Commentary
A. Shaykh al-Albānī had earlier declared the complete ḥadīth of Muʿādh authentic in his marginalia on Ibn Abī Shaybah’s al-Īmān (p. 16, nos. 1–2). Ibn Abī Shaybah relates it there through ʿUrwah ibn al-Nazzāl and through Maymūn ibn Abī Shaybīb, both from Muʿādh. The Shaykh said: “A ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth via the following chain; its transmitters are those of the two Shaykhs except ʿUrwah ibn al-Nazzāl, whom only Ibn Ḥibbān (1/158) declared reliable. Al-Tirmidhī also transmitted it through Abū Wāʾil from Muʿādh and said, ‘A ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth.’”
I suspect that this grading predates the Shaykh’s detailed study of the isnāds. In Irwāʾ he examined the chains at length—those of Abū Wāʾil, ʿUrwah ibn al-Nazzāl, and Maymūn ibn Abī Shaybīb, none of whom, as he demonstrated, actually heard from Muʿādh—and he concluded:
“All that emerges from the foregoing is that every route is broken at the same point except this one chain and one of Shahr ibn Ḥawshab’s two routes, which strengthens it. As for the other routes, it is impossible to claim that they corroborate one another, for they share a single flaw—the omission of the tābiʿī. The missing reporter could well be one and the same person; in that case the routes effectively collapse into a single chain, and that tābiʿī may be unknown. Allah knows best.
In short, nothing of the ḥadīth can be deemed authentic except the portion intended by the compiler, for that comes through two connected chains that reinforce each other. Allah knows best.” End of quote.
This shows that the Shaykh retracted what he had written in his notes on Ibn Abī Shaybah’s al-Īmān.
He then revoked that retraction and graded the ḥadīth ḥasan once he located the additional route he attributed to al-Ṭabarānī, and he ruled it ṣaḥīḥ li-ghayrihi in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Targhīb wa’l-Tarhīb (no. 2866).
B. The route that the Shaykh cited from al-Ṭabarānī (20/73–74) is also recorded, in abridged form, by al-Bukhārī in al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr (7/426), by Ibn Naṣr in Taʿẓīm Qadr al-Ṣalāh (1/219), and referenced by al-Dāraqutnī in al-ʿIlal (6/78) and by al-Bayhaqī in al-Shuʿab (4/248).
C. Shaykh al-Albānī’s assertion in Irwāʾ that when several chains are severed at the same link they amount to a single route because they share an identical defect is open to objection; the established treatment of mursal reports disproves it. His remark would be acceptable only if everyone who omitted the Companion between himself and Muʿādh had taken the ḥadīth from the same shaykh, as has sometimes been alleged with mursal traditions—but that is not the case here.
The ḥadīth is transmitted as mursal from Muʿādh by Abū Wāʾil, Maymūn ibn Abī Shaybīb, Shahr (in certain versions), ʿUrwah ibn al-Nazzāl, and Makḥūl, and their shaykhs differ. The idea that they all drew it from a single, unknown or weak source can therefore be confidently dismissed.
Admittedly, the common link might still be one narrator, though not because of shared shaykhs but for another reason: the multiple chains that pass through ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm suggest that he is the intermediary between Muʿādh and those who cited the report either directly from him or through an intermediary.
Shahr explicitly states that he received it from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm, through ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Bahrām, whose reports from Shahr were judged ḥasan by Imām Aḥmad. Ayyūb ibn Karīz also corroborates it; although unknown, he is acceptable here—if Allah wills—as supporting evidence. Another corroboration comes from ʿUmayr ibn Hāniʾ, who is trustworthy; his version appears in Ibn Ḥibbān’s Ṣaḥīḥ.
All this lends weight to the view that Muʿādh’s ḥadīth was originally related by his close companion and associate ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm, from whom it spread among the tābiʿīn. The narration revolves around him, and he is a reliable Imām about whom no questions are raised.
It thus appears to me that the ḥadīth, in its full form, is authentic by virtue of these routes and corroborations—exactly the conclusion eventually reached by Shaykh al-Albānī—and that, in all probability, its focal point is ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm. Allah knows best.
Hadith Fourteen
1/ Text: Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī — may Allah be pleased with him — reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Whoever loves his worldly life will harm his Hereafter, and whoever loves his Hereafter will harm his worldly life. So give precedence to what abides over what perishes.”