and he broke it.”
Al-Bayhaqī (4/244) records the report, and this Ziyād is Ziyād ibn ʿAbd-Allāh an-Numayrī of Baṣra. He is weak; his narrations are written down only for corroboration.
4 – As for the report of Abū ad-Dardāʾ, it is transmitted by al-Walīd ibn Muslim, from Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, from Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUbayd-Allāh, from Umm ad-Dardāʾ, from Abū ad-Dardāʾ — may Allah be pleased with him — who said:
“We set out with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ during the month of Ramaḍān in intense heat. One of us would place his hand on his head because of the severity of the heat, and none of us was fasting except the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and ʿAbd-Allāh ibn Rawāḥah.”
Muslim (3/145) recorded it, saying: “Dāwūd ibn Rashīd narrated to us; al-Walīd ibn Muslim narrated to us,” and so on with this chain.
Although al-Walīd ibn Muslim is trustworthy, he practices tadlīs al-taswiyah, the most severe form of concealment in transmission, and he conveyed the entire chain in the ambiguous ʿanʿanah form (“from …”). Abū Dāwūd, however, brought the ḥadīth in his Sunan (1/378):
“Muʾammal ibn al-Faḍl narrated to us; al-Walīd narrated to us; Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz narrated to us …,” providing an uninterrupted series of explicit ‘ḥaddathanā’ (“he told us”) for every narrator except at Umm ad-Dardāʾ, where he said, “from Abū ad-Dardāʾ,” and he worded it:
‘during one of his campaigns,’ instead of ‘during the month of Ramaḍān.’
In my judgment, this is the correct version: the report of Abū ad-Dardāʾ does not contain the phrase “during the month of Ramaḍān,” for several reasons.
First: Although Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz is trustworthy, he experienced confusion before his death, as Abū Mushir stated. The wording “during the month of Ramaḍān” is disputed in his narration: al-Walīd ibn Muslim affirmed it in the transmission of Dāwūd ibn Rashīd from him, but did not affirm it in the transmission of Muʾammal ibn al-Faḍl — and Muʾammal is trustworthy. This latter version from al-Walīd is further strengthened by the corroboration of other reliable transmitters, among them ʿAmr ibn Abī Salamah from Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, with the wording: