and a number of others narrated from him. For the soundness of the hadith, it is sufficient that Ibn Maʿīn narrated it without identifying any defect in it.

Nor does the hadith contradict the Quran, as some imagine. For an explanation of this, see my notes on al-Mishkāh (5735), and then my notes on al-Dhahabī’s Abridgement of al-ʿUluww, hadith no. 71. It also has another chain from Abū Hurayrah; consult it there.

As for the narration of Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Yaḥyā to which al-Bayhaqī referred, al-Ḥākim recorded it in ʿUlūm al-Ḥadīth (p. 33). Ibrāhīm said: “Ṣafwān ibn Sulaym interlaced his fingers with mine and said: Ayyūb ibn Khālid al-Anṣārī interlaced his fingers with mine and said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rāfiʿ interlaced his fingers with mine and said: Abū Hurayrah interlaced his fingers with mine and said: Abū al-Qāsim, peace and blessings be upon him, interlaced his fingers with mine and said”—then he mentioned it.

Al-Ḥākim thus indicated that it was weak in this serial chain involving the interlacing of fingers. Its defect lies in Ibrāhīm, for he is abandoned, as mentioned above.

As for Dr. Aḥmad Muḥammad Nūr’s declaring the hadith defective because of Ayyūb ibn Khālid, in his notes on al-Tārīkh (3/52), and his statement, “There is some weakness in him,” this is merely his imitation of Ibn Ḥajar, who deemed him somewhat weak in al-Taqrīb. This carries no weight, for no one declared him weak except al-Azdī, who is himself considered weak by the hadith scholars. Take note.

1834 — “The best provision is sufficiency.”

Wakīʿ recorded it in al-Zuhd (no. 113—my manuscript): Mubārak narrated to us, from al-Ḥasan, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said—then he mentioned it.

I say: This is a weak mursal report. Mubārak ibn Fuḍālah practised tadlīs and narrated it with the ambiguous wording “from.” However, Aḥmad also recorded it in al-Zuhd from Ziyād ibn Jubayr, likewise as a mursal report, as stated in al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr. It also has a supporting report from the hadith of Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ, attributed to the Prophet, with the wording: