Adam, peace be upon him, said: “You are Moses, whom Allah chose for His message, to whom He spoke, and whom He drew near for private conversation.” He said: “Yes.” Adam said: “Then which came first: I or the decree?” He said: “Rather, the decree.” The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Thus Adam prevailed over Moses; thus Adam prevailed over Moses; thus Adam prevailed over Moses.”

Ahmad and al-Tabarani also transmitted it through two routes from Hammad, from Ammar ibn Abi Ammar, from Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, with this report. Its chain of transmission is authentic, whereas the first chain is defective because of the discontinuity, as noted above.

Note: Al-Suyuti included the hadith in al-Jami al-Kabir (1/23/1) and in his supplement to al-Jami al-Saghir (fol. 8/1), with the wording cited above, as narrated by al-Khatib from Anas. In al-Khatib’s work, however, it is narrated from Anas, from Jundub, as mentioned above. The mention of Anas in the chain is anomalous, as indicated by the preceding routes recorded by Ahmad, al-Tabarani, and others. Moreover, the hadith occurs in the two Sahih collections and in al-Musnad (2/248, 264, 268, 287, 314, 392, 398, 448), as well as elsewhere, through routes from Abu Hurayrah, with similar wording in its complete form.

910 — “Beware of worldly life, for it is lush and sweet.”

Imam Ahmad transmitted it in al-Zuhd (p. 11): Zayd ibn al-Hubab narrated to us; Sufyan ibn Sa'id narrated to us from al-Zubayr ibn Adi, from Mus'ab ibn Sa'd, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said it.

I say: This chain of transmission is authentic, were it not that it is mursal. However, it has a corroborating report with a continuous chain, worded as follows:

“Indeed, worldly life is lush and sweet, and Allah, may He be exalted, will make you successors therein in order to see how you act. So beware of worldly life and beware of women, for the first trial of the Children of Israel was concerning women.”

911 — “Indeed, worldly life is lush and sweet, and Allah, may He be exalted, will make you successors therein in order to see how you act. So beware of worldly life and beware of women, for the first trial of the Children of Israel was concerning women.”

Ahmad transmitted it in al-Musnad (3/22).