that.’ He said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then lifted his gaze—(in another wording: the Messenger of Allah ﷺ swept his eyes)—toward the sky and then related it. Abu Ṭālib said, “My nephew has not lied. Go back.”
I say: This isnād is ḥasan; all of its transmitters are those cited by Muslim. As for Yūnus—he is Yūnus ibn Bukayr—and Ṭalḥah ibn Yaḥyā, the minor criticism concerning them is of no consequence.
As for the report, “O uncle, by Allah, were they to place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left so that I abandon this matter until He makes it prevail or I perish in its cause, I would never abandon it,” it has no reliable chain of transmission; therefore I included it in al-Aḥādīth al-Ḍaʿīfah (913).
93 – “There will be camels of the devils and dwellings of the devils. As for the camels of the devils, I have seen them: one of you sets out with spare mounts that he has fattened, yet he rides none of them and passes by his brother whose mount has failed, but he does not take him up. As for the dwellings of the devils, I have not seen them.”
Abū Dāwūd recorded it in the Book of Jihād, no. 2568, through the route of Ibn Abī Fudayk: “ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Yaḥyā narrated to me from Saʿīd ibn Abī Hind who said: Abū Hurayrah …” — and he reported it as a marfūʿ narration with an addition: Saʿīd used to say, “I can only think that they are these cages in which people screen themselves with brocade.”
I say: This isnād is ḥasan; all of its narrators are trustworthy transmitters of the two Shaykhs, except ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Yaḥyā—he is ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Yaḥyā al-Aslamī, nicknamed “Saḥbal”; he is reliable. Ibn Abī Fudayk is Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl, and the reservation about him is slight.
It appears that what he ﷺ meant by “the dwellings of the devils” are those luxurious automobiles that some people ride out of vanity and ostentation; when they pass by someone in need of a lift, they refuse, thinking that helping him would undermine their pride and arrogance. This ḥadīth is thus one of the signs of his prophethood ﷺ.