“A good, singular hadith through this route.”

I say: Kathīr ibn Zayd al-Aslamī is weak. As for ʿUthmān ibn Rabīʿah al-Taymī al-Madanī, Ibn Ḥibbān mentioned him in al-Thiqāt; no one other than this al-Aslamī narrated from him. Al-Bukhārī recorded the hadith in “Supplications,” al-Nasāʾī in “Seeking Refuge,” Aḥmad (4/122 and 125), and al-Ṭabarānī (7172–7174), through Bashīr ibn Kaʿb al-ʿAdawī, from Shaddād ibn Aws, as a report traced back to the Prophet, with its wording but without the phrase, “Shall I not direct you to?” Al-Ḥākim claimed that al-Bukhārī had omitted it, but he was mistaken.

Note: This is the wording of the hadith in al-Tirmidhī, according to the copy of al-Tuḥfah. In the Būlāq edition (2/245) and the al-Daqqās edition (3390), it reads: “No one says it in the evening, and then the divine decree overtakes him before morning, except that Paradise becomes obligatory for him; and no one says it in the morning, and then the divine decree overtakes him before evening, except that Paradise becomes obligatory for him.” Al-Ṭabarānī likewise narrated it (7187), but without the words in both instances, “and then the divine decree overtakes him.” He then narrated it (7189) by another route from Kathīr ibn Zayd al-Madanī: al-Mughīrah ibn Saʿīd ibn Nawfal narrated to me from Shaddād with this wording, including the addition.

The hadith also has a corroborating report from Buraydah ibn al-Ḥuṣayb, attributed to the Prophet, with similar wording but without the phrase, “the foremost supplication for forgiveness.” Aḥmad (5/356) and other compilers of the Sunan recorded it. Ibn Ḥibbān authenticated it (2353), and its chain is authentic, its narrators being trustworthy.

1748 — “The first matter for which a servant will be brought to account is the prayer, and the first matter to be adjudicated between people will be bloodshed.”

Al-Nasāʾī (2/163), Ibn Naṣr in al-Ṣalāh (fol. 31/1), Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim in al-Awāʾil (fol. 4/2), al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (10425), and al-Quḍāʿī in Musnad