For this reason, when Abū Muhammad al-Husayn ibn Mas‘ūd al-Baghawī produced an abridgment of it—he was more knowledgeable than al-Tha‘labī in hadith and jurisprudence, whereas al-Tha‘labī was more knowledgeable about the views of the Quran commentators—[al-Baghawī cited from him the views of the Quran commentators] (1), as well as those of the grammarians and the accounts of the prophets. These were the matters that al-Baghawī transmitted from al-Tha‘labī. As for the hadiths, he included none of the fabrications narrated by al-Tha‘labī in his commentary. Rather, he cited the authentic reports and attributed them to al-Bukhārī and others. Indeed, he authored “Sharh al-Sunnah” (Commentary on the Sunnah) and “al-Masābīh” (The Lamps), and cited material found in the two Sahih collections and the Sunan works. He did not include hadiths that hadith scholars could readily identify as fabricated, as other Quran commentators did, such as al-Wāhidī—an associate of al-Tha‘labī who was more knowledgeable in Arabic than he was—and al-Zamakhsharī, as well as other commentators who cited hadiths that hadith scholars knew to be fabricated (2).

Second: Those knowledgeable in hadith regard this hadith as fabricated. This is why hadith scholars did not include it in the works upon which reliance is placed in hadith, such as the Sahih, Sunan, and Musnad collections (3). Some of these works (4) do contain weak reports, and even some reports known to be false, but these are exceedingly few. This hadith (5) and others like it, however, are too manifestly false for them to include in works of that kind.

Third: It may be said that, by universal agreement, the verse concerns mosques (6), as He said: