“Keep horses, for goodness is tied to their forelocks until the Day of Resurrection.” He said: “Al-Ṭabarānī and al-Ḍiyāʾ narrated it from Suwādah ibn al-Rabīʿ.”
I say: It is found in al-Ṭabarānī’s al-Kabīr (6480) through the route of Muʿallā, al-Bukhārī’s shaykh. However, it appears there as Ibn Rāshid al-ʿAmmī, which is a corruption of Asad. He then narrated it (6482) through another route, from al-Murjī ibn Rajāʾ, from Salm—though it appears there as “Muslim”!—with the same chain and text, but without the hadith under discussion and without the words, “and tell them …” Something similar is found in al-Bazzār (1688).
1937 — “Adhere to emigration, for there is nothing comparable to it; … adhere to fasting, for there is nothing comparable to it; and adhere to prostration, for you do not prostrate once to Allah without Allah raising you one rank thereby and erasing from you one sin thereby.”
Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in al-Kabīr, as cited in al-Suyūṭī’s al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr and al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr, on the authority of Abū Fāṭimah. I have not been able to locate its chain of transmission, nor anyone who has discussed it in terms of authentication or weakness. I was, however, able to locate the entire hadith, apart from the passage concerning jihad, dispersed among several sources. That omitted passage, indicated by the ellipsis, reads: “Adhere to jihad, for there is nothing comparable to it.” The details are as follows:
- Al-Nasāʾī recorded (2/182–183), through the route of Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā ibn Sumayyiʿ, who said: Zayd ibn Wāqid related to us, from Kathīr ibn Murrah, that Abū Fāṭimah—that is, he informed him—said: “O Messenger of Allah, tell me of a deed to which I may adhere and perform.” The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, then gave him the above advice, limiting it to its first passage.
I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy apart from Ibn Sumayyiʿ, who was truthful but made errors and practised concealment in transmission, as al-Ḥāfiẓ stated. Yet, as you can see, he explicitly stated that he heard the report directly. It also has another route in al-Musnad (3/428), narrated by Ibn Lahīʿah: al-Ḥārith ibn Yazīd related to us, from Kathīr al-Aʿraj al-Ṣadafī, who said: “I heard Abū Fāṭimah …” Then he cited it.