due to any question over his truthfulness, but rather to weakness in his retention. The same applies to his teacher, Yazīd ibn Abān al-Raqqāshī. Ibn ʿAdī said of him: “He has acceptable hadiths from Anas and others, and I hope that there is no harm in him, since trustworthy narrators have narrated from him.” He said of al-Khalīl: “I have not seen among his hadiths any rejected report that exceeds the bounds. He is among those whose hadith may be recorded, and he is not abandoned in hadith.”

I say: Narrators such as these two, although their hadiths are not relied upon as proof, may be cited as corroboration. Another route from Anas has also been transmitted which is better than this one; taken together, they strengthen the hadith and raise it to the level of good. Its wording is:

“Whomever Allah provides with a righteous wife, He has helped him with half of his religion; so let him fear Allah regarding the other half.”

Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ (3/161/1), and al-Ḥākim (2/161), through ʿAmr ibn Abī Salamah al-Tanīsī, who said: Zuhayr ibn Muḥammad narrated to us: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān informed me—al-Ḥākim added: ibn Zayd—from Anas ibn Mālik, that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said it.

Al-Ḥākim said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic. This ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is Ibn Zayd ibn ʿUqbah al-Azraq, a trustworthy and reliable Medinan.”

Al-Dhahabī agreed with him. This is what he said. Yet Zuhayr ibn Muḥammad is Abū al-Mundhir al-Khurāsānī al-Shāmī, whom al-Dhahabī included in al-Ḍuʿafāʾ and described as: “Trustworthy, though possessing some weakness.” In al-Taqrīb it states: “The narrations of the people of Syria from him are unsound, and he was therefore deemed weak on account of them.” Al-Bukhārī related from Aḥmad