to identify Abu Salamah and realise that he himself is the very narrator meant. I therefore withdrew the hesitation mentioned earlier and moved on to authenticate the report—praise be to Allah, the One who grants success. The ḥadith is as follows:

“No one is ever struck by anxiety or grief and then says:

‘O Allah, I am Your servant, the son of Your male servant, the son of Your female servant. My forelock is in Your hand; Your command concerning me is carried out, and Your decree for me is just. I beseech You by every name that is Yours: those You have named Yourself with, taught to any of Your creation, revealed in Your Book, or kept to Yourself in the knowledge of the unseen, to make the Qur’an the springtime of my heart, the light of my breast, the remover of my sadness, and the reliever of my anxiety’—

except that Allah removes his anxiety and grief and replaces them with relief.”

He (the narrator) said: It was asked, “O Messenger of Allah, should we not learn these words?” He replied, “Indeed; whoever hears them should learn them.”

199 – “No one is ever struck by anxiety or grief and then says: ‘O Allah, I am Your servant, the son of Your male servant, the son of Your female servant. My forelock is in Your hand; Your command concerning me is carried out, and Your decree for me is just. I beseech You by every name that is Yours: those You have named Yourself with, taught to any of Your creation, revealed in Your Book, or kept to Yourself in the knowledge of the unseen, to make the Qur’an the springtime of my heart, the light of my breast, the remover of my sadness, and the reliever of my anxiety’—except that Allah removes his anxiety and grief and grants him relief in their place.”

It was related by Aḥmad (3712); al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Usāmah in his Musnad (p. 251 of the additions); Abū Yaʿlā (fol. 156/1); al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (3/74/1); Ibn Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ (2372); and al-Ḥākim (1/509) through the chain: Fudayl ibn Marzūq narrated to us from Abū Salamah al-Juhanī, from al-Qāsim ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from his father, from ʿAbd Allāh, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said … and he mentioned it.

al-Ḥākim said: “This ḥadith is authentic according to the criteria of Muslim, provided that the transmission of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh from his father is uninterrupted, for there is disagreement over whether he actually heard from his father.”

al-Dhahabī critiqued him, saying: “I say: As for Abū Salamah, no one knows who he is, and he has no narration in the Six Books.”

I (al-Albānī) say: Abū Salamah al-Juhanī was given a biographical entry by al-Ḥāfiẓ in al-Taʿjīl, where he said: