“Its chain of transmission is authentic, but neither of them recorded it.” Al-Dhahabī agreed.
I say: Both of them erred in two respects: al-Ḥākim’s treating it as an omission from Muslim, although Muslim had in fact recorded it; and his grading it authentic without qualification, rather than restricting that judgment to its meeting Muslim’s criteria. Perhaps this error was the reason for al-Suyūṭī’s shortcoming in al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr, where he attributed the hadith only to al-Ḥākim. This escaped al-Manāwī as well, and he did not correct it, contrary to his usual practice. Strangely, however, in al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr (1/156/2), he also attributed it to Muslim—and there he was correct.
1660 — “The one who guides to goodness is like the one who does it.”
It has been narrated on the authority of Abū Masʿūd al-Badrī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, Sahl ibn Saʿd, Buraydah ibn al-Ḥuṣayb, Anas ibn Mālik, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar.
- As for the hadith of Abū Masʿūd, al-Aʿmash narrated it from Abū ʿAmr al-Shaybānī, Saʿīd ibn Iyās, from the Anṣārī, Abū Masʿūd, as a report attributed to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in these words. It was recorded by al-Ṭaḥāwī in Mushkil al-Āthār (1/484), Aḥmad (5/274), al-Kharāʾiṭī in Makārim al-Akhlāq (pp. 16–17), Ibn Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ (867 and 868), and Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr in al-Jāmiʿ (1/16), through various chains from al-Aʿmash with this wording. The wording is al-Kharāʾiṭī’s. Ibn Ḥibbān’s wording is:
“A man came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and asked him. He said, ‘I have nothing to give you, but go to so-and-so.’ The man went to him, and he gave him something. The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, then said: ‘Whoever guides to a good deed shall have a reward like that of the one who performs it.’”
Al-Ṭaḥāwī’s wording is similar, except that he said: “The one who guides to goodness has a reward like that of the one who does it.”
I say: Its chain of transmission is authentic according to the criteria of the two Shaykhs, and Muslim also recorded it (6/41)