- “The most incapable of people is the one incapable of supplication, and the most miserly of people is the one miserly in offering greetings of peace.”
ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī narrated it in Kitāb al-Duʿāʾ (The Book of Supplication) (141/2) through Abū Yaʿlā, and al-Ṭabarānī through two routes, from Masrūq ibn al-Marzubān: Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth narrated to us from ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal, from Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī, from Abū Hurayrah, attributed to the Prophet.
I say: This is a good chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy and are among the narrators of the two Shaykhs, apart from Masrūq, who was truthful but had occasional errors, as al-Ḥāfiẓ stated. The hadith of one such as him is good and does not rise to the level of authentic. Al-Suyūṭī did well, therefore, to designate it as good in al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr. As for al-Manāwī’s objection, in which he said: “Al-Mundhirī said: ‘Its chain of transmission is good and strong.’ Al-Haythamī said: ‘Its narrators are those of the Ṣaḥīḥ, apart from Masrūq ibn al-Marzubān, who is trustworthy.’ From this it is known that the compiler’s designation of it as good falls short; he ought to have designated it as authentic”—
this objection has no basis. He was merely misled by al-Haythamī’s statement that Ibn al-Marzubān was trustworthy. This is an unqualified accreditation, despite the slight weakness that you have now learned he possessed.
Nevertheless, the hadith is authentic, for al-Maqdisī cited a supporting report for it through several routes from Zayd ibn al-Ḥuraysh: ʿUmar ibn al-Haytham narrated to us from ʿAwf, from al-Ḥasan, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughafal, attributed to the Prophet. Its narrators have been deemed reliable, apart from this ʿUmar, who is unknown, as stated in al-Taqrīb. Al-Ḥasan practised tadlīs and transmitted it using an ambiguous “from” formula.