2193 — “There is no deed performed in a day except that it is sealed. When a believer falls ill, the angels say: ‘Our Lord, Your servant, so-and-so, has been confined.’ The Lord then says: ‘Continue to record for him deeds like those he used to perform, until he recovers or dies.’”

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā narrated it in al-Maraḍ wa-l-Kaffārāt (Illness and Expiations) (158/2). He said: Aḥmad ibn Jamīl narrated to us; he said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak informed us; he said: Ibn Lahīʿah informed us; he said: Yazīd related to me that Abū al-Khayr told him that he heard ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir al-Juhanī attribute it to the Prophet.

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy. Ibn Lahīʿah is liable to criticism for poor retention only when the one narrating from him is not among the group of narrators known as the ʿAbādilah (the ʿAbd Allāhs). This is, as you see, a narration from him by ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, and reports transmitted from Ibn Lahīʿah by him are authentic, as more than one scholar has established.

Aḥmad ibn Jamīl is al-Marwazī, and he was truthful, as Abū Ḥātim stated. Ibn Maʿīn said: “There is nothing objectionable about him.” Another man from Marw corroborated him: Aḥmad said (4/146): ʿAlī ibn Isḥāq narrated to us; he said: ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us with the same chain. This Ibn Isḥāq—al-Sulamī, their client—was among al-Tirmidhī’s trustworthy teachers.

Ibn al-Mubārak also has another chain for it from Yazīd—namely, Ibn Ḥabīb—which al-Ḥākim transmitted (4/308–309) through ʿAbdān: ʿAbd Allāh informed us; Rushdayn informed me, from ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith, from Yazīd, with it. He said: “The chain of transmission is authentic.” Al-Dhahabī objected, saying: “I say: Rushdayn is weak.”

I say: It is strengthened by the first route, which is strong—contrary to the impression given by al-Manāwī when he said: “Al-Haythamī criticized the chain of Aḥmad and al-Ṭabarānī on the grounds that it contains Ibn Lahīʿah.”