“Trustworthy, but there is weakness in his narrations from Qatādah, and he has errors when he narrates from memory.” I say: This is not among his narrations from Qatādah; rather, it is from Yūnus al-Aylī, whom they listed among his shaykhs.
- Abū Khaythamah was Zuhayr ibn Ḥarb al-Ḥarashī al-Nasāʾī, unanimously deemed trustworthy. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said: “Trustworthy and precise; Muslim narrated more than a thousand hadiths from him.”
In sum, the hadith is undoubtedly authentic. Whatever critical remarks there may be concerning some of its narrators are slight and do not impair its authenticity—as is apparent. And Allah knows best.
A benefit: Some people in Damascus and elsewhere have become accustomed to making the sevenfold recitation mentioned in this hadith aloud and in unison after the Fajr prayer. I know of no basis for this in the purified sunnah. Nor can this hadith serve as evidence for them, for it is unrestricted: it is not restricted to the Fajr prayer in the first place, nor to a congregation. It is not permissible to restrict what the Wise Lawgiver has left unrestricted, just as it is not permissible to leave unrestricted what He has restricted, for all of that is legislation belonging exclusively to the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
Whoever wishes to act upon this hadith should do so at any hour of the night or day, before the prayer or after it. That is pure adherence to the sunnah and sincerity in doing so. May Allah, Exalted is He, grant us this.
As for the hadith: “When you have performed the Fajr prayer, say before speaking: ‘O Allah, protect me from the Fire,’ seven times …”—it is weak, as you will find thoroughly established in al-Ḍaʿīfah (1624). So do not be deceived by one who judged it good, for that is a scholar’s lapse; nor by one who blindly follows him, for he possesses no knowledge.
Then the Musnad of Abū Yaʿlā was published in an edition verified by our brother Ḥusayn Salīm Asad, and there he includes the hadith under discussion and says in his note: