those among them who strut about with the title “Doctor”! They write on subjects that lie outside their field and beyond their knowledge. I personally know one such individual who put out for public consumption a book—largely on ḥadith and sīrah—in which he claimed to have relied solely on the authentic reports found in the canonical works of ḥadith and biography. Yet in that very book he included narrations transmitted only by weak, abandoned, or even openly accused narrators such as al-Wāqidī and others. Indeed, he even cited the report, “We judge by what is outward, while Allah takes charge of the inner realities,” flatly attributing it to the Prophet ﷺ, although it has no basis from him in this wording, as the ḥadith experts—among them al-Sakhāwī—have made clear. So beware, dear readers, of people of this sort. Allah alone is the One whose help is sought.

40 – “When darkness first falls at night, keep your young children indoors, for at that hour the devils spread out. Once a portion of the night has passed, then let them go.”

Al-Bukhārī recorded it (2/322, 4/36–37), as did Muslim (6/106) and Abū Dāwūd (3733), through the chain of ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allah, raised to the Prophet.

Aḥmad (3/388) narrated it with similar wording and added: “for the jinn are abroad then and liable to snatch things.” Its chain is sound.

(“genḥ al-layl”)—that is, when its darkness begins. Al-Ṭībī said: “genḥ al-layl” refers to a portion of the night, and what is meant here is its first portion, when the blackness of night reaches the depth of ʿishāʾ.