“Allah, the Exalted, surrounded Paradise with a wall of alternating bricks of gold and silver. He then caused rivers to flow through it and planted trees therein. When the angels beheld its beauty, they said, ‘How blessed you are—the dwelling-place of kings!’” Al-Bayhaqī and others recorded it, but its version attributed to the Companion is the sounder and well-known one. And Allah knows best.

I say: Al-Bayhaqī recorded this in al-Baʿth (p. 54, Islamic University facsimile edition) through Muḥammad ibn Yūnus: Suhayl ibn Bakkār narrated to us; Wuhayb ibn Khālid narrated to us, with the same chain. Muḥammad ibn Yūnus—namely, al-Kudaymī—was accused of fabricating hadith, so the corroboration he reports should not be relied upon. Abū Nuʿaym also recorded it in Description of Paradise (1/173/140), through another chain from ʿAdī ibn al-Faḍl, attributing it to the Prophet.

I then saw that the eminent scholar Ibn al-Qayyim cited, in Hādī al-Arwāḥ (2/40), al-Bazzār’s chain attributed to the Companion, as Ibn Kathīr had cited it. After declaring ʿAdī ibn al-Faḍl weak, he said: “The hadith is authentic as a report attributed to the Companion. And Allah knows best.” The hadith has also been narrated through other chains as a report attributed to the Prophet, both in a longer and an abridged form, but without the angels’ statement: “How blessed you are—the dwelling-place of kings!” It has been fully referenced in the other book; see nos. 1283, 1284, and 1285.

2663 — “Whenever a people abandon jihad, Allah envelops them in punishment.”

Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Awsaṭ (2/228): ʿAlī ibn Saʿīd al-Rāzī narrated to us; ʿUqbah ibn Qabīṣah informed us; my father narrated to us; Mālik ibn Mighwal narrated to us from Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, from Qays ibn Abī Ḥāzim, from Abū Bakr, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said it. He then said: