“It is a good, authentic, singular hadith.”

2179 — “Seventy thousand from my community will surely enter Paradise without reckoning or punishment; with every thousand, there will be seventy thousand more.”

Aḥmad (5/280–281) narrated it: Abū al-Yamān narrated to us; Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh narrated to us from Ḍamḍam ibn Zurʿah, who said: Shurayḥ ibn ʿUbayd said:

“Thawbān fell ill in Homs, whose governor was ʿAbd Allāh ibn Qurṭ al-Azdī, but he did not visit him. Then a man from Kilaʿ entered to visit Thawbān, and Thawbān said to him: ‘Can you write?’ He replied: ‘Yes.’ He said: ‘Write.’ So he wrote to the governor, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Qurṭ, from Thawbān, the freedman of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him:

‘To proceed: If Moses and Jesus had a freedman in your vicinity, you would have visited him.’

“He then folded the letter and asked him: ‘Will you deliver it to him?’ He replied: ‘Yes.’ The man then took his letter and delivered it to Ibn Qurṭ. When he read it, he rose in alarm. The people said: ‘What is the matter with him? Has something happened?’ He then went to Thawbān, entered upon him, visited him, and sat with him for an hour. Then he rose to leave, but Thawbān took hold of his cloak and said: ‘Sit, until I narrate to you a hadith which I heard from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. I heard him say...’ Then he cited it.”

I say: This is a good chain of transmission; its narrators are trustworthy. There is some slight disagreement concerning Ḍamḍam, but it is not detrimental, as noted above. There is likewise disagreement as to whether Shurayḥ heard from Thawbān, but this too is not detrimental, since it is corroborated, as will follow.

Al-Ṭabarānī also narrated it in al-Kabīr (1/71/1), from Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl, who said: “My father narrated to me from Ḍamḍam ibn Zurʿah,” with the same report, except that he said: “From Shurayḥ ibn ʿUbayd, from Abū Asmāʾ al-Raḥbī, from Thawbān, attributed to the Prophet, with the same wording.” Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh is weak.

Note: Al-Manāwī mentioned that Aḥmad and al-Ṭabarānī narrated this hadith from Sarīʿ ibn ʿAbd Allāh, from Thawbān.