“Any man who rises to perform ablution intending to pray, then washes his hands, will have his sins fall from his hands with the first drop. When he rinses his mouth, draws water into his nose, and expels it, his sins will fall from his tongue and lips with the first drop. When he washes his face, his sins will fall from his hearing and sight with the first drop. Then, when he washes his arms up to the elbows and his feet up to the ankles, he will be free of every sin and misdeed he has committed, as he was on the day his mother gave birth to him.” He said: “Then, if he rises to pray, Allah raises him in rank thereby; and if he sits, he sits free of sin.”
Al-Mundhirī said (1 / 96): “It has a good chain in corroborating narrations, and there is no objection to it.” In al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr, al-Suyūṭī attributed the hadith only to al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr—omitting the fourth passage—and thus overlooked the fact that it occurs more completely in al-Musnad. In al-Kabīr, most of its passages are transmitted separately (7556, 7560, 7561–7567, and 7569–7572), through Shahr from Abū Umāmah, may Allah be pleased with him.
- “Beware of undue spreading apart—meaning, in prayer.”
Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (3 / 122 / 2) through Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth, and Ibn Abī Ḥātim in al-ʿIlal (1 / 141) through Muḥammad ibn Khālid al-Wahbī, from Ibn Jurayj, from ʿAṭāʾ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said …
He then cited it. ʿAbd al-Razzāq differed from them, narrating it from Ibn Jurayj with the report halted at Ibn ʿAbbās, rather than attributed to the Prophet. Al-Ṭabarānī also recorded it.
I say: Its chain is authentic both as a report attributed to the Prophet and as a report halted at Ibn ʿAbbās, but the version attributed to the Prophet is more authentic, since two trustworthy narrators concurred upon it. Although Ibn Jurayj practised tadlīs, his narration from ʿAṭāʾ is understood to have been heard directly, on the basis of his own statement: “When I say, ‘ʿAṭāʾ said,’ I heard it from him, even if I do not say, ‘I heard.’” Perhaps for this reason Abū Ḥātim did not deem it defective on account of the ambiguous ‘from’ formulation, although he found it objectionable, as related from him by his son: