It was transmitted by Ibn Saʿd (7/508) and al-Bukhārī in al-Tārīkh (4/1/266–267). I say: This chain of transmission is weak. This Ḥammād—his name being a sobriquet, while his actual name was Muḥammad—is weak. Abū ʿAqīl’s name was Muslim ibn ʿAqīl. Al-Bukhārī cited him in his biographical notice, but did not mention any criticism or accreditation concerning him; Ibn Abī Ḥātim did likewise (4/1/190). As for ʿAbd Allāh ibn Iyās ibn Abī Fāṭimah and his father, I have found no biographical entry for either of them. Abū Fāṭimah, however—who was al-Ḍamrī, as appears in the chain of transmission in al-Tārīkh—was mentioned by Ibn Ḥajar in al-Iṣābah, in the first section; he cited this hadith under his entry, but added nothing further.

The third report is from Jābir: Someone who heard Buraydah al-Aslamī told us that he heard the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) say: “No misfortune, or anything greater than it, befalls a Muslim man—even a thorn—except for one of two reasons: either Allah forgives him a sin which He would not have forgiven except through such a trial, or He enables him to attain a degree of honor which he would not have attained except through such a trial.”

It was also transmitted by Ibn Abī al-Dunyā (folio 88/1–2). I say: This chain of transmission is weak because the man who narrated it to Jābir is unknown, for he was not named. Jābir—namely, Ibn Yazīd al-Juʿfī—is weak; hence al-Mundhirī (4/147) indicated that his hadith is weak.

2600 — “Indeed, some of you are witnesses concerning others.”

It was transmitted by al-Ṭayālisī (2388), Aḥmad (2/466 and 470), Abū Dāwūd (3233), and al-Nasāʾī (2/273), through several routes from Ibrāhīm ibn ʿĀmir, from ʿĀmir ibn Saʿd, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: