“O people, no prophet was ever sent except that he lived half as long as the one before him. I am soon to be summoned and will answer, and I am leaving among you that by which you will not go astray after me: the Book of Allah…” The hadith. It includes the hadith under discussion, except for the words: “O Allah, befriend…” Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it (4986), and its narrators are trustworthy.
The fifth route: from ʿAṭiyyah al-ʿAwfī, who said: “I asked Zayd ibn Arqam…” and he related it in similar terms, without the additional wording, except that he said: “I said to him, ‘Did he say: O Allah, befriend whoever befriends him and be hostile to whoever is hostile to him?’ He replied, ‘I have only told you what I heard.’” Aḥmad recorded it (4/368), as did al-Ṭabarānī (5068–5071). Its narrators are trustworthy—the narrators of Muslim—apart from ʿAṭiyyah, who is weak. Al-Ṭabarānī also has other routes for it (4983, 5058, and 5059), none of which are free of weakness.
- Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ: there are three routes from him. The first: from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sābiṭ, from him, attributed to the Prophet, containing only the first half. Ibn Mājah recorded it (121). I say: Its chain of transmission is authentic.
The second: from ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ayman, from his father, with the same report. Al-Nasāʾī recorded it in al-Khaṣāʾiṣ (16), and its chain of transmission is also authentic. Its narrators are trustworthy—the narrators of al-Bukhārī—apart from Ayman, the father of ʿAbd al-Wāḥid; he is trustworthy, as stated in al-Taqrīb.
The third: from Khaythamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from him, with the additional wording. Al-Ḥākim recorded it (3/116) through the route of Muslim al-Malāʾī, from him.