“By Allah, I wish I were a tree that is cut down.”

Al-Hakim said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic, but neither al-Bukhari nor Muslim recorded it.” Al-Dhahabi made no comment on this. Al-Tirmidhi (2/51) and Ibn Majah (4190) also recorded it through this route, without the recitation of the verse. Al-Tirmidhi said: “This is a good, singular hadith. It is also narrated through another route that Abu Dharr said: ‘I wish I were a tree that is cut down.’”

I say: Ahmad (5/173) recorded it in this manner, explicitly stating that the words, “By Allah, I wish …,” were Abu Dharr’s own words. Its chain to Ibrahim is authentic. This proves that whoever made it part of the hadith—as in the narrations of al-Hakim, al-Tirmidhi, and Ibn Majah—has erred by interpolating it into the hadith.

Moreover, the hadith has weakness in its chain due to Ibrahim ibn Muhajir. Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar said of him in al-Taqrib: “Truthful, but weak in retention.” Al-Mundhiri cited the hadith in al-Targhib with al-Hakim’s wording, saying: “Al-Bukhari narrated it in abbreviated form, as did al-Tirmidhi, except that he said: ‘There is not in it a space the width of four fingers’; and al-Hakim—whose wording this is—said: ‘Its chain of transmission is authentic.’”

I say: His attributing it in abbreviated form to al-Bukhari is an error, for al-Bukhari did not narrate it from Abu Dharr at all. Rather, he narrated it in a very abbreviated form (4/237) on the authority of Abu Hurayrah and Anas, with the wording: “If you knew what I know, you would laugh little and weep much.”

1723 — “It is not fitting for a prophet to have a treacherous glance.”

Abu Dawud (2683 and 4359), al-Nasa’i (2/170), al-Hakim (3/45), and Abu Ya‘la in his Musnad (1/216–217) all recorded it through Ahmad ibn al-Mufaddal, who reported to us: