the Messenger of Allah, to whom Allah has granted this rank?” This pleased him, so he supplicated Allah to increase me in knowledge and understanding.” He said: “Then I saw the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, fall asleep until I heard him snoring. Then Bilāl came to him and said, ‘Messenger of Allah, it is time for prayer.’ So he rose and prayed without renewing his ablution.”
I say: This chain of transmission is authentic according to the criteria of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. Al-Ḍiyāʾ also transmitted it in al-Mukhtārah (67/118/2) through Imam Aḥmad, then said: “Accounts of Ibn ʿAbbās praying with the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, have been narrated through other routes in the two Ṣaḥīḥs. However, in the report we have narrated, they did not mention the stepping back, the Prophet’s words, or the reply to him in either Ṣaḥīḥ.”
This hadith indicates, as a matter of jurisprudence, that the sunnah is for a lone man praying behind an imam to stand level with him on his right, neither ahead of him nor behind him. This is the position of the Ḥanbalīs, as stated in Manār al-Sabīl (1/128).
- “The best earnings are a man’s work with his own hand, and every honest sale.”
Authentic. It has two routes of transmission. The first is from Rāfiʿ ibn Khadīj. It was narrated by Aḥmad (4/141), al-Ṭabarānī in al-Awsaṭ (1/135/1), and al-Ḥākim (2/10), through al-Masʿūdī, from Wāʾil ibn Dāwūd, from ʿAbāyah ibn Rifāʿah, from him. He said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was asked, “Which earnings are best?” He replied, “A man’s work …” Al-Ṭabarānī said: “No one narrated it from Wāʾil except al-Masʿūdī.”