1844 — “The best of your dates is the Barni date: it drives away illness, and contains no illness.”
It has been narrated in reports from Buraydah ibn al-Ḥuṣayb, Anas ibn Mālik, Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, Muzaydah, the grandfather of Hūd ibn ʿAbd Allāh, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and some members of the delegation of ʿAbd al-Qays.
- As for the report of Buraydah, Abū Bakr al-Aʿyun narrates it: Abū Maʿmar ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr related to me; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sakan al-Raqāshī informed us; ʿUqbah al-Aṣamm informed us, from Ibn Buraydah, from his father, attributing it to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.
It was recorded by al-Rūyānī in his Musnad (8/2), Ibn ʿAdī (301/2), al-Bayhaqī in al-Shuʿab, and al-Ḍiyāʾ in al-Mukhtārah, as cited in al-Suyūṭī’s al-Laʾālī (2/242). He said: “It is the strongest of the hadith’s routes of transmission.”
I say: That is what he said, but ʿUqbah is Ibn ʿAbd al-Aṣamm, who is weak, as al-Dhahabī stated. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said: “Weak, and he may at times have practised concealment in transmission.” Ibn Abī Ḥātim included ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Sakan (2/2/76), but mentioned neither any criticism nor endorsement of him. Ibn al-Jawzī included this hadith in al-Mawḍūʿāt (The Fabricated Reports), through the route of Ibn ʿAdī, and said: “Regarding ʿUqbah, Ibn Ḥibbān said: ‘He alone narrates rejected reports from well-known narrators.’” Al-Suyūṭī attempted to rebut him, but to no avail.
- As for the report of Anas, ʿUbayd ibn Wāqid narrates it from ʿUthmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAbdī, from Ḥumayd, from him: “A delegation of ʿAbd al-Qays, from the people of Hajar, came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and he said...” Then he cited it. It was recorded by al-ʿUqaylī in al-Ḍuʿafāʾ (291) and Abū Nuʿaym in al-Ṭibb, no. (10 — al-Muntaqā