And Allah knows best. His statement, “No child of fornication will enter Paradise,” is not to be understood according to its apparent meaning. Rather, it refers to one who has become so immersed in fornication that it predominates over him, and thereby deserves to be ascribed to it, so that it is said: he is a son of it. This is like those who are immersed in worldly life being ascribed to it and called sons of this world because of their knowledge of it and absorption in it; and like the traveler being called a son of the road. Similarly, “a child of fornication” and “a son of fornication” are said of one who has become immersed in fornication, until such immersion is attributed to him and fornication comes to predominate over him. This is what is meant by the statement, “He will not enter Paradise”; it does not refer to one born of fornication who is not himself among those guilty of fornication, as was explained earlier in the preceding hadith. I derived this meaning from the words of Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī, may Allah have mercy on him, and his explanation of this hadith. And Allah knows best.

Then I found another supporting report for the hadith, though without the addition. Its wording is: “No habitual drinker of wine, no one undutiful to his parents, and no one who reminds others of what he has given will enter the sacred enclosure.” Aḥmad narrated it (3/226), saying: Hushaym narrated to us: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAmmī narrated to us from ʿAlī ibn Zayd, from Anas ibn Mālik, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said—and he cited it.

I say: ʿAlī ibn Zayd—namely, Ibn Judʿān—is weak. As for Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAmmī, al-Samʿānī mentioned him in al-Ansāb among those who narrated from Thābit al-Bunānī and from whom Abū al-Naḍr and others narrated; thus, he is an obscure narrator.

In sum, it is an acceptable supporting report. It is further strengthened by what Ibn Khuzaymah narrated in al-Tawḥīd (p. 237) through two chains from Khālid ibn al-Ḥārith, who said: Shuʿbah narrated to us from Yaʿlā ibn ʿAṭāʾ, from Nāfiʿ, from ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, who said: “No drunkard, no one undutiful to his parents, and no one who reminds others of his gifts will enter the sacred enclosure.”