and prayer, and charity. Allah will not take a servant into His protection and then entrust him to another on the Day of Resurrection. No man loves a people without coming with them on the Day of Resurrection. As for the fourth—were I to swear by it, I would not fear committing a sin: Allah does not conceal a servant’s faults in this world except that He will conceal them for him in the Hereafter.”

Abū Yaʿlā recorded it in his Musnad (216/2): Hudbah ibn Khālid narrated to us: Hammām narrated to us, from Isḥāq ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Ṭalḥah, from Shaybah al-Khuḍrī, who witnessed ʿUrwah relating to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, from ʿĀʾishah, from the Prophet, who said it. Thereupon, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz said: “When you hear something such as this from someone like ʿUrwah, preserve it.” Isḥāq said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUtbah ibn Masʿūd also narrated to me, from Ibn Masʿūd, from the Prophet, something similar.

I say: Its chain to ʿĀʾishah is weak because Shaybah al-Khuḍrī is unknown, as al-Dhahabī stated. As for its chain to Ibn Masʿūd, it is authentic; all its narrators are trustworthy and are narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim. This is a valuable, rare report from Ibn Masʿūd through this chain. Aḥmad (6/145), al-Ṭaḥāwī in al-Mushkil (2/50), and al-Ḥākim (1/19 and 4/384) recorded it only through the first route, from ʿĀʾishah. You have already learned that it is weak because of the narrator’s unknown status. Thus, al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Mundhirī’s statement in al-Targhīb (1/143), “Aḥmad narrated it with a good chain of transmission,” is not sound; and similar to it is al-Haythamī’s statement in al-Majmaʿ (1/143): “Aḥmad narrated it, and its narrators are trustworthy.” It appears that it has another route from Ibn Masʿūd, for al-Haythamī said after the foregoing: “Abū Yaʿlā also narrated it from Ibn Masʿūd with similar wording.”

I say: Al-Mundhirī attributed it to al-Ṭabarānī’s al-Kabīr, and I found it there (3/13/2), through two chains from him, attributed to the Companion; both are interrupted. I also found another chain from ʿĀʾishah: Abū Nuʿaym recorded it in Akhbār Iṣfahān (1/268), from al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Iṣfahānī, who said: Abū Masʿūd narrated to us.