625 – “When a slave marries, he has completed half of the religion; so let him fear Allah regarding what remains.”
Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ (1/162/1), through ʿIṣmah ibn al-Mutawakkil, who said: Zāfir ibn Sulaymān narrated to us, from Isrāʾīl ibn Yūnus, from Jābir, from Yazīd al-Raqqāshī, from Anas ibn Mālik, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said it. He added: “No one narrated it from Zāfir except ʿIṣmah.”
I say: Both are weak, and above them are two further weak narrators: Jābir—namely, Ibn Yazīd al-Juʿfī—and Yazīd al-Raqqāshī. Jābir is more severely weak than he is. However, he was not alone in narrating it from him, for al-Ṭabarānī also recorded it through ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ: al-Ḥasan ibn Khalīl ibn Murrah narrated to me, from his father, from Yazīd al-Raqqāshī, with the same report.
I say: This is a chain composed entirely of weak narrators:
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ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ is the Egyptian scribe of al-Layth; he has weakness and inattentiveness.
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I have found no biographical notice for al-Ḥasan ibn al-Khalīl ibn Murrah. In his father’s biographical notice in al-Tahdhīb, it is mentioned that his son, ʿAlī ibn al-Khalīl ibn Murrah, narrated from him; and I have found no biographical notice for him either.
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Al-Khalīl ibn Murrah is weak, as stated in al-Taqrīb.
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Yazīd al-Raqqāshī, who is Ibn Abān, is also weak. The report has also been narrated from him through another route, better than this one, via al-Khalīl. Al-Khaṭīb recorded it in al-Mūḍiḥ (2/84), through Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī, who said: Al-Khalīl ibn Murrah narrated to us, with the same report.
I say: Thus, the chain of transmission to al-Khalīl is established as sound. Although he is weak, as we have mentioned, this weakness is not