“Ahmad narrated it through a chain of transmission that is unobjectionable,” clearly involves a degree of leniency. Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUbayd Allāh—namely, Ibn Abī al-Muhājir—contradicted him, narrating from Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Ashʿarī that Abū Hurayrah visited a sick man and said to him: The Messenger of Allah said: “Allah, Mighty and Majestic, says: ‘It is My Fire, which I unleash upon My believing servant in this world so that it may be his portion of the Fire in the Hereafter.’” Its chain of transmission is authentic, and its sourcing has preceded under no. 557.

Further corroboration for the hadith is provided by what ʿIṣmah ibn Sālim al-Hanāʾī narrated to us: Ashʿath ibn Jābir narrated from Shahr ibn Ḥawshab, from Abū Rayḥānah, in a report ascribed to the Prophet: “...and it is the believer’s portion of the Fire.” The rest is the same. It was recorded by al-Bukhārī in al-Tārīkh (4 / 1 / 63), al-Ṭaḥāwī, Ibn Abī al-Dunyā in al-Maraḍ (159 / 2), and Ibn ʿAsākir in al-Tārīkh (8 / 64 / 2).

I say: This is a good chain for corroborative purposes. Its narrators are truthful, though Shahr ibn Ḥawshab was weak in terms of his retention. Al-Ṭabarānī also recorded it through this route, as stated in al-Targhīb and al-Majmaʿ (4 / 306). In sum, the hadith is authentic through these chains, while its first clause has further corroborating reports in the two authentic collections and elsewhere.

1823 — “O Guardian of Islam and its people, keep me steadfast upon it until I meet You.”

Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Awsaṭ (no. 653), and al-Ḍiyāʾ narrated it from him in al-Mukhtārah (f. 150 / 1), through his chain to Muḥammad ibn Salamah al-Ḥarrānī and Khaṭṭāb ibn al-Qāsim, from Abū al-Wāṣil ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Wāṣil, from Anas ibn Mālik, that the Messenger of Allah used to say this. Al-Ṭabarānī said: “It is narrated from Anas only through this chain of transmission; Abū al-Wāṣil alone narrated it.”