“I was travelling with the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. …” The hadith continues: “Then he said: ‘Shall I not tell you of the head of the matter, its pillar, and its highest summit?’ I said: ‘Indeed, O Messenger of Allah.’ He said: ‘The head of the matter and its pillar is prayer, and its highest summit is jihad.’ Then he said: ‘Shall I not tell you what holds all of that together?’ I said: ‘Indeed, O Prophet of Allah.’ So he took hold of his tongue and said: ‘Restrain this.’ I said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, will we be held accountable for what we say?’ He replied: ‘May your mother be bereaved of you, Mu'adh! What else casts people face-first into the Fire—or, he said, upon their nostrils—except the harvest of their tongues?’”

Al-Tirmidhi, who graded it authentic, Ibn Majah, and others also recorded it in similar wording. Al-Mundhiri and others, however, considered it defective because of a break in its chain of transmission. The eminent scholar Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali explained this in Jami' al-'Ulum wa al-Hikam (p. 195). Yet the hadith is authentic when all its chains are considered together, especially this portion concerning guarding the tongue, for it has corroborating reports whose sources are given in Majma' al-Zawa'id (10/300–301). Among its corroborating reports is that found in al-Jami' al-Saghir, from Malik ibn Yukhamir, attributed to the Prophet: “Guard your tongue.” Ibn 'Asakir narrated it.

I say: Al-Tabarani also recorded it (folio 59/1 of the selected extract from it) through Ibn Thawban, from his father, from al-Qasim, from Abu Umamah, from 'Uqbah ibn 'Amir, who said: “I said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, what is the believer’s salvation?’ He said: ‘Guard your tongue, let your home suffice you, and weep over your sin.’”

I say: This is a good chain of transmission.

1123 — “Shave it all or leave it all.”

Ahmad (2/88) narrated it, as did Abu Dawud from him (2/194, al-Taziyah edition) and al-Nasa'i (2/276), through 'Abd al-Razzaq: Ma'mar narrated to us from Ayyub, from Nafi', from Ibn 'Umar, “that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, saw a boy whose hair had been partly shaved and partly left unshaved. He forbade them from doing that and said”—then he cited the wording above.

I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission meeting the conditions of al-Bukhari and Muslim. Muslim also recorded it