2470 — “Among the believers are those whose hearts soften toward me.”

Imam Aḥmad transmitted it (5/267): Ḥaywah narrated to us; Baqiyyah narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Ziyād narrated to me; Abū Rāshid al-Ḥubrānī said: “Abū Umāmah al-Bāhilī took me by the hand and said: ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ took me by the hand and said to me: “O Abū Umāmah! Among the believers are those whose hearts...”’” He then mentioned the hadith.

I say: Its chain of transmission is authentic; all its narrators are trustworthy. Baqiyyah is feared only on account of concealment in transmission, but he explicitly stated that he heard it directly; thus, we are safe from his concealment.

Note: Al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī inverted the wording of this hadith, citing it in his book Risālat al-Mustarshidīn (p. 66) as: “My heart is for him.” Its editor, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Abū Ghuddah al-Ḥanafī al-Kawtharī, commented: “I have not come across it in the hadith reference works that I consulted; Allah knows best whether it is established.”

I say: Had he consulted al-Musnad, he would have found it. Indeed, had he consulted something more readily accessible than that, he would have found it, for al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Haythamī cited it in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (10/276) with the wording mentioned by al-Muḥāsibī. Al-Haythamī said: “Al-Ṭabarānī transmitted it, and its narrators have been declared trustworthy.”

I say: What escaped him was that it occurs in al-Musnad with the first wording. Then I saw that he had cited it elsewhere (1/63) with the first wording, saying: “Aḥmad transmitted it, and its narrators are narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ.” Perhaps his statement, “Its narrators have been declared trustworthy,” was only because Baqiyyah did not explicitly state direct transmission in al-Ṭabarānī’s narration. If so, this provides another benefit: Imam Aḥmad related the hadith from Baqiyyah with an explicit statement of direct transmission. May Allah reward him well for his service to hadith and its people.