I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission; all its narrators are known and trustworthy. Abū Rajāʾ’s name was Muḥriz ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Jazarī. Abū Dāwūd said: “Trustworthy.” Abū Ḥātim likewise declared him trustworthy, and Ibn Ḥibbān included him in al-Thiqāt, saying: “He used concealment in transmission from Makḥūl. His reports are acceptable when he explicitly states having heard them from Makḥūl or others.”

I say: He narrated this hadith from Makḥūl only through Burd ibn Sinān, so the possibility that he concealed his transmission from him is thereby removed. However, al-Dhahabī stated in the section on kunyas in al-Mīzān: “Abū Rajāʾ al-Jazarī narrated from Furāt ibn al-Sāʾib, and ʿAbdah ibn Sulaymān and Ismāʿīl ibn Zakariyyā narrated from him. It is said that his name was Muḥriz. Ibn Ḥibbān said: He narrated from Furāt and from the people of al-Jazīrah many objectionable reports for which he has no corroboration. It is not permissible to use his report as evidence when he is the sole transmitter. Among them is his narration from Furāt, from Maymūn, from Ibn ʿUmar, attributed to the Prophet: ‘No household endures hardship for three days except that Allah brings them provision.’”

Thus, Ibn Ḥibbān appears to have contradicted himself concerning this man: on one occasion he included him in al-Thiqāt, and on another in his book al-Ḍuʿafāʾ. Perhaps those objectionable reports originated with the narrators whom he concealed in transmission, rather than with him personally, for he is trustworthy, as mentioned above. And Allah knows best.

Abū Nuʿaym also reported the hadith in al-Hilya (10/365) and Akhbār Iṣbahān (2/302), as did al-Bayhaqī in al-Zuhd (99/2), through another route from Abū Rajāʾ, adding: “Laugh less, for excessive laughter deadens the heart.”

This addition has a third route from Abū Hurayrah, which has already been cited under no. 506. It also has a supporting narration related by Ibrāhīm ibn Hishām ibn Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Ghassānī: My father related to me from my grandfather, from Abū Idrīs al-Khawlānī, from Abū Dharr, who said: “I entered the mosque and found the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, sitting alone. I sat beside him, and he said:”