623 — “Marry virgins, for they are sweeter in speech, more fertile in womb, and more content with little.”

Ibn Mājah (1861) recorded it: Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mundhir al-Ḥizāmī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah al-Taymī narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sālim ibn ʿUtbah ibn ʿUwaym ibn Sāʿidah al-Anṣārī narrated to me, from his father, from his grandfather, who said: The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said it.

I say: This is a weak chain of transmission, and it has two defects. The first is that of an unknown narrator: no one other than this Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah is mentioned as having narrated from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sālim ibn ʿUtbah. Therefore, al-Ḥāfiẓ said in al-Taqrīb: “Unknown.”

I say: The same applies to his father, Sālim ibn ʿUtbah, for no one other than this son of his, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, narrated from him.

The other defect is inconsistency in its chain of transmission. Al-Ḥizāmī narrated it from Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah in this manner, but Fayḍ ibn Wathīq differed from him and said, on his authority: “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sālim ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUwaym ibn Sāʿidah informed me, from his father, from his grandfather,” with the hadith. It was recorded by al-Muqābirī in his Ḥadīth (87/1), Tammām al-Rāzī in al-Fawāʾid (113/2), and al-Bayhaqī (7/81). ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ibrāhīm al-Dimashqī also differed from him: “Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah al-Taymī informed us,” with the hadith. Ibn Qutaybah recorded it in Gharīb al-Ḥadīth (1/36/1).