I say: The connected report is weak because Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Maymūn is unknown. However, it is strengthened by al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s mursal report, since it comes through a different route; thus, it rises to the level of good, Allah Most High willing.
- “Straighten the rows, for you arrange yourselves in rows like the rows of the angels. Align your shoulders, close the gaps, and do not leave openings for Satan. Whoever joins a row, Allah will join him.”
Al-Dūlābī narrated it in al-Kunā (1/39), from Abū al-Zāhiriyyah, from Abū Shajarah, as a report traced back to the Prophet. I say: Its chain is authentic, but it is mursal, since Abū Shajarah—whose name was Kathīr ibn Murrah al-Ḥaḍramī—was a trustworthy Successor. As stated in al-Tahdhīb, he narrated mursal reports from the Prophet. Yet it has been authentically established from him through a connected chain that mentions ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar in it. Thus, the hadith is authentic, praise be to Allah; for this reason, I included it in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd (672).
- “When the Banū Abī al-ʿĀṣ reach thirty men, they will make Allah’s religion a means of deception, Allah’s servants their chattel, and Allah’s wealth a monopoly circulated among themselves.”
It has been reported on the authority of Abū Hurayrah, Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī, and Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān.
- As for the hadith of Abū Hurayrah, Sulaymān ibn Bilāl narrates it from al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah, traced back to the Prophet in these words. It was recorded by Tammām in al-Fawāʾid (59/2) and by al-Bayhaqī in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwah (vol. 2).