1693 — “Allah has servants who recognize people through discernment.”

It was narrated by Abu al-Shaykh in his al-‘Awali (2/32/1), al-Tabarani in al-Awsat (3086), al-Quda‘i (84/2), and al-Wahidi in al-Tafsir, through Abu Bishr al-Muzallaq, from Thabit al-Bunani, from Anas ibn Malik, attributed to the Prophet.

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy, apart from this Abu Bishr, whose name was Bakr ibn al-Hakam al-Tamimi. He was declared trustworthy by Abu ‘Ubaydah al-Haddad, Abu Salamah al-Tabudhaki, Sa‘id ibn Muhammad al-Harbi, and Ibn Hibban. No one declared him weak, except that Abu Zur‘ah said: “A shaykh who is not strong.”

I say: Although this is not weighty criticism, it is unexplained and therefore cannot take precedence over the attestations of trustworthiness cited above. It was perhaps for this reason that al-Dhahabi said in al-Mizan: “Truthful.” Al-Hafiz said: “Truthful, though there is some weakness in him.” Al-Haythami said: “Its chain of transmission is good.” Al-Sakhawi followed him in al-Maqasid al-Hasanah (p. 20).

Al-Dhahabi’s statement in the biographical entry on Abu al-Muzallaq, “He narrated a rejected report …”—after which he cited this report—is unacceptable unless he meant that Abu al-Muzallaq alone narrated it. If so, that does not harm its establishment, in view of Imam al-Shafi‘i’s statement, may Allah Most High have mercy on him: “An anomalous hadith is not one in which a trustworthy narrator relates what the people have not related; rather, it is one in which he relates something that contradicts the people.” The narrator of this hadith has contradicted no one; rather, the well-known hadith supports it: