“The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, recited this verse:
‘What is the matter with those who disbelieve, rushing toward you, from the right and from the left in separate groups? Does every one of them hope to enter a Garden of bliss? No indeed! We created them from that which they know.’
Then the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, spat into his palm and said”—then he mentioned the above report. This is al-Hakim’s wording. He said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic.” Al-Dhahabi agreed with him. Al-Busiri said in al-Zawa'id (168/1): “Its chain of transmission is authentic, and its narrators are trustworthy.” It is as they said.
1144 — “Allah, Exalted is He, looks upon His creation on the night of the middle of Sha'ban and forgives all of His creation, except a polytheist or one who harbors enmity.”
An authentic hadith. It has been narrated from a group of Companions through various chains that strengthen one another: Mu'adh ibn Jabal, Abu Tha'labah al-Khushani, Abdullah ibn Amr, Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, Abu Hurayrah, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, Awf ibn Malik, and Aishah.
- As for the hadith of Mu'adh, Mak'hul narrated it from Malik ibn Yukhamir, from Mu'adh, attributed to the Prophet. Ibn Abi Asim narrated it in al-Sunnah, no. 512—my recension: Hisham ibn Khalid narrated to us; Abu Khalid Utbah ibn Hammad narrated to us from al-Awza'i and Ibn Thawban—who narrated from his father—from Mak'hul, with this wording. Through this chain, it was also narrated by Ibn Hibban (1980), Abu al-Hasan al-Qazwini in al-Amali (4/2), Abu Muhammad al-Jawhari in The Seventh Session (3/2), Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Raba'i in A Section of His Hadiths (217/1 and 218/1), Abu al-Qasim al-Husayni in al-Amali (12/1), al-Bayhaqi in Branches of Faith (2/288/2), Ibn Asakir in The History (15/302/2), al-Hafiz Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi in the Ninety-Third Part of His Hadith Documentation (44/2), and Ibn al-Muhibb in Divine Attributes of the Lord of the Worlds (7/2 and 129/2). He said: “Al-Dhahabi said: ‘Mak'hul did not meet Malik ibn Yukhamir.’”
I say: Were it not for this, the chain of transmission would have been good, for its narrators are considered reliable. Al-Haythami said in Majma' al-Zawa'id (8/65): “Al-Tabarani narrated it in the Major and Middle Collections, and the narrators of both are trustworthy.”