already mentioned. It is good in light of the preceding report, and its narrators are trustworthy, apart from ʿĀʾishah bint al-Mundhir. The correct name is bint al-Zubayr, as stated in the biographical entry of the narrator from her, Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Zubayrī, in the book of Ibn Abī Ḥātim and elsewhere. Ibn Ḥibbān deemed her trustworthy (7/307).

2672 — “Indeed, swords are the keys to Paradise.”

Ibn Abī Shaybah recorded it in al-Muṣannaf (7/145/2): Zayd ibn Ḥubāb narrated to us from Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān al-Ḍubaʿī, who said: Abū ʿImrān al-Jawnī informed us from Abū Bakr ibn Abī Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, who said: I heard my father, while facing the enemy, say: I heard the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, and he then quoted the statement.

A man of shabby appearance said to him, “Did you hear this from the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him?” He replied, “Yes.” Thereupon, he drew his sword, broke its scabbard, turned to his companions, and said, “I bid you farewell.” He then advanced against the enemy and fought until he was killed.

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. All of its narrators are trustworthy and are among the narrators of the two Shaykhs, except Zayd ibn Ḥubāb and his teacher al-Ḍubaʿī, who are among Muslim’s narrators alone. Some criticism has been voiced concerning both of them, but it is not detrimental.

It has a corroborating report through Yazīd ibn Abī Ziyād—who was the client of Banū Hāshim—from Mujāhid, from Yazīd ibn Shajarah, who said in one of his sermons, at its conclusion: “I have been informed that swords are the keys to Paradise.” Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it through two chains, one of which is sound and authentic, as al-Mundhirī said (2/195). Al-Haythamī said (5/294): “Its narrators are among the narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ collections.”

I say: He recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (22/246–247) through two chains, one of them through ʿAbd al-Razzāq; and this is found in al-Muṣannaf (5/256–257), from al-Thawrī, from Manṣūr, from Mujāhid, with the same wording.