- “An angel came to me and said: ‘O Muhammad, would it not please you that your Lord, Mighty and Majestic, says: No one of your Ummah invokes blessings upon you except that I confer blessings upon him tenfold, and no one of your Ummah sends you greetings of peace except that I return greetings of peace to him tenfold?’ He said: ‘Indeed, it would.’”
Al-Nasāʾī (1/191), al-Dārimī (2/317), Ibn Ḥibbān (2391), al-Ḥākim (2/420), and Aḥmad (4/30) narrated it through Ḥammād ibn Salamah, from Thābit, from Sulaymān—the client of al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī—from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Ṭalḥah, from his father: “One day, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, came with joy visible on his face. They said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, we can see joy upon your face.’ He said …” Then he cited it. Aḥmad’s is the wording given above. In Ibn Ḥibbān’s narration, he said: “I said: ‘Indeed, it would, O my Lord.’”
Al-Ḥākim said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic,” and al-Dhahabī agreed with him. That is what he said! Yet this Sulaymān was described by al-Dhahabī himself in al-Mīzān: “No one narrated from him other than Thābit al-Bunānī.” Al-Nasāʾī said: “He is not well-known.”
Nevertheless, the hadith is authentic, for it has another route: Abū Maʿshar narrated it from Isḥāq ibn Kaʿb ibn ʿUjrah, from Abū Ṭalḥah al-Anṣārī, with similar wording. Aḥmad recorded it (4/29). This chain is weak because of Abū Maʿshar’s poor retention, and because Isḥāq ibn Kaʿb is unknown in status. It is therefore suitable for corroborating reports and supporting narrations.
It also has a corroborating report from the hadith of Salamah ibn Wardān, who said: “I heard Anas and Mālik ibn Aws ibn al-Ḥadathān relate that …”