“A perjurious oath leaves homes desolate.”

It was narrated by Khaythamah al-Aṭrābulusī in al-Muntakhab min al-Fawāʾid (1/189/1), al-Dūlābī in al-Kunā (2/165), Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī in Miftāḥ al-Maʿānī (359/2), and al-Khaṭīb in Talkhīṣ al-Mutashābih (13/147/1), from ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Sukūnī—though some said: al-Yashkurī—from ʿAmr ibn Qays, from Wāthilah ibn al-Asqaʿ, in a report attributed to the Prophet.

I say: I have not identified this ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, and no one has provided a biographical notice for him—not even Ibn ʿAsākir in Tārīkh Dimashq. He only included a notice for a namesake of his, likewise from Homs, but he belonged to a generation much later than this one; he died in 292 AH. As for ʿAmr ibn Qays, who was al-Sukūnī of Homs, he was a trustworthy Successor.

979 — “Hasten to perform deeds before six things: the rule of fools, the proliferation of police, the severing of kinship ties, the selling of judgments, the taking of blood lightly, and a generation that treats the Quran as musical instruments, putting forward a man who is neither their most learned in jurisprudence nor their most knowledgeable; they put him forward for no reason other than that he may sing for them.”

It was narrated by Aḥmad (3/494), Abū ʿUbayd in Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān (folio 34/2), Abū Ghurzah al-Ḥāfiẓ in Musnad ʿĀbis (2/1), and Ibn Abī al-Dunyā in al-ʿUqūbāt (78/1), from Sharīk, from Abū al-Yaqẓān, from Zādhān, from ʿAlīm, who said:

“I was with ʿĀbis al-Ghifārī on a rooftop when he saw some people moving away because of the plague. He said: ‘What is the matter with these people, that they are moving away because of the plague? O plague, take me to you!’—twice. A cousin of his who had been a Companion said to him: ‘Why do you wish for death, when you have heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: “None of you should wish for death...”’”