- “Shall I not tell you of one who returns more swiftly and gains greater booty than this expedition? A man who performs minor ablution in his home and performs it well, then makes his way to the mosque and offers the Fajr prayer there, then follows it with the Duha prayer: he has returned more swiftly and gained greater booty.”
Abu Ya‘la recorded it in his Musnad (4/1530–1531), and Ibn Hibban (629) through his route: Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaybah narrated to us; Hatim ibn Isma‘il narrated to us, from Humayd ibn Sakhr, from al-Maqburi, from Abu Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, dispatched an expedition. They acquired abundant booty and returned swiftly. A man said, “O Messenger of Allah, we have never seen an expedition that returned more swiftly or gained greater booty than this one.” He replied with the words quoted above.
Ibn ‘Adi also recorded it in al-Kamil (2/275) through two other routes from Hatim with this chain. I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy and are among Muslim’s narrators, though Humayd ibn Sakhr has a weakness that does not detract from this hadith. Al-Mundhiri said (1/235): “Abu Ya‘la narrated it, and the narrators in its chain are the narrators of the Sahih.”
The hadith has a limited corroborating report from ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him. Al-Tirmidhi and others recorded it, and it contains a weakness which I explained in al-Ta‘liq al-Raghib (1/166). However, this hadith of Abu Hurayrah strengthens it. Al-Bazzar also narrated it in his Musnad (p. 300) through the route of Zayd ibn al-Hubab: Humayd, the client of Banu ‘Abdah—perhaps Ibn ‘Alqamah—narrated to me, from ‘Ata’ ibn Abi Rabah, from him. Al-Bazzar said: