1901 — “For a man to stand in the path of Allah for an hour is better than sixty years of worship.”
It was narrated by al-ʿUqaylī in al-Ḍuʿafāʾ (p. 30) and al-Khaṭīb in al-Tārīkh (10/295), through Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Salmān al-Makkī, who said: Al-Ḥasan narrated to us from ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn, tracing it back to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. He said: “This hadith is not preserved.” He mentioned it in the biography of this Ismāʿīl, and al-Dhahabī said: “He is unknown.”
I say: Yet he was not alone in narrating it, as was previously documented under Hadith 899. We also cited there a supporting narration from Abū Hurayrah. Refer to it, if you wish, so that you may recognize the importance of tracing a hadith’s routes of transmission and its supporting narrations, and that the mere fact that a hadith comes by way of a weak chain of transmission does not necessarily mean that the hadith itself is weak or unpreserved. Reflect on this, for it is a point at which feet may easily slip.
For this reason, I have exerted myself, to the best of my ability, in all my books—especially in this series—not to declare a hadith weak until conducting an exhaustive search for its routes and supporting narrations. Through this, I have been able to rescue dozens—indeed, hundreds—of hadiths from being deemed weak. Allah Most High is the ultimate aim, and I ask Him to preserve me from error.
Among those books was Ghāyat al-Marām: Tracing the Hadiths on the Lawful and the Forbidden. In its introduction, I explicitly set out the methodology just mentioned. It has now been printed and has begun to spread among Muslim youth. All praise and grace belong to Allah. I have likewise done so in Mukhtaṣar al-Shamāʾil al-Muḥammadiyyah li-al-Tirmidhī, and it will be printed, by Allah’s permission.
1902 — “Allah’s martyrs on earth are His trustees over His creation, whether they are slain or die.”
Aḥmad narrated it (4/200): Abū al-Yamān narrated to us; Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh narrated to us from Muḥammad ibn Ziyād al-Alhānī, who said: