“Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was the dearest of all people to me during the pre-Islamic period. When he was commissioned as a Prophet and migrated to Medina, Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām attended the pilgrimage season while still a disbeliever. He found a robe of Dhū Yazan being offered for sale and bought it for fifty dinars, intending to give it to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, as a gift. He brought it to him in Medina and asked him to accept it as a gift, but he refused.” ʿUbayd Allāh said: “I think he said: ‘Indeed, we do not accept anything from the polytheists. But if you wish, we will take it for a price.’ So I gave it to him after he had declined my gift.”

Al-Ḥākim said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic.” Al-Dhahabī agreed with him, and it is as they said. It is corroborated by a similar report from ʿIyāḍ ibn Ḥimār, with an authentic chain of transmission, recorded in al-Rawḍ al-Naḍīr (741); and by another report from ʿĀmir ibn Mālik, which will come under no. 1727.

1708 — “Indeed, Allah has forbidden for my ummah wine, gambling, mizr (barley beer), the kūbah (drum), and qannīn (lutes), and He added the Witr prayer for me.”

Aḥmad recorded it (2/165 and 167) through Faraj ibn Faḍālah, from Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Rāfiʿ, from his father, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, who said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said the above. He also said: Yazīd—meaning Ibn Hārūn—said: “Qannīn are barābiṭ (lutes).”

I say: This is a weak chain of transmission. Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Rāfiʿ is unknown, as al-Ḥusaynī stated, and Faraj ibn Faḍālah is weak. However, the hadith is authentic, for its contents have been reported separately through other routes. Ibn Lahīʿah narrated it from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hubayrah, from Abū Hubayrah al-Kilāʿī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, in a report traced back to the Prophet, with the same wording but without mention of the Witr prayer. Aḥmad recorded it (2/172).