“Among the signs of the Hour is that the traitor will be entrusted, and the trustworthy person will betray his trust.”

Al-Kharāʾiṭī recorded it in Makārim al-Akhlāq (Noble Character, p. 31). Its narrators are reliable, except for this ʿAbd al-Salām, whom I have not identified.

2289 — “On the night I was taken by night through the Highest Assembly, I passed by Gabriel, and he was like a worn-out saddlecloth out of fear of Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He.”

Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Bazzār narrated it in his Hadith collection (116/2): al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Faḍl ibn Rashīd al-Ṭabarī narrated to us; he said: ʿUmar ibn ʿUthmān al-Kilābī narrated to us; he said: ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm narrated to us, from ʿAṭāʾ, from Jābir, attributing it to the Prophet.

I say: This chain of transmission is weak. All its narrators are reliable except for ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān al-Kilābī—the original has ʿUmar, as you can see, but this is an error—and he is weak, as stated in al-Taqrīb. As for al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Faḍl ibn Rashīd al-Ṭabarī, al-Dāraquṭnī said: “Truthful.” He also has a biographical notice in The History of Baghdad (12/147).

Al-Suyūṭī said regarding the hadith in al-Khaṣāʾiṣ al-Kubrā (1/158): “Ibn Mardawayh and al-Ṭabarānī, in al-Awsaṭ, transmitted it from Jābir through an authentic chain of transmission.”

I say: Perhaps al-Suyūṭī’s basis for declaring it authentic was al-Haythamī’s statement in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (1/78): “Al-Ṭabarānī transmitted it in al-Awsaṭ, and its narrators are the narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ.” I say: If this was his basis, it is not strong, because a hadith scholar’s statement, “Its narrators are the narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ,” is not equivalent to saying, “Its chain of transmission is authentic.” The former means only that its chain fulfils one of the conditions for authenticity—namely, that its narrators are trustworthy narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ—and does not mean that it is free from—