Silsilat al-Ahadith al-Sahihah - Nasir al-Din al-Albani - (1/394)

Silsilat al-Ahadith al-SahihahNasir al-Din al-Albani

and it was indeed held back for him until Allah granted him victory, so they captured the spoils.

He continued: They gathered what they had taken, whereupon a fire came to consume it but refused to touch it—for whenever they seized booty, Allah Most High would send a fire upon it and it would devour it.
He said, “There is misappropriation among you. Let one man from every tribe pledge allegiance to me.” They did so, and the hand of one man stuck to his hand. He said, “The misappropriation is among you; let your whole tribe now pledge allegiance to me.” They pledged, and the hand of two—or three—men clung to his hand. He said, “There is misappropriation among you; you are the ones who have taken something unlawfully.” They replied, “Yes, we have taken the likeness of the face of a cow made of gold.” So they brought out for him something the size of a cow’s head fashioned from gold. He placed it with the booty while they were on the open ground, and the fire came and consumed it.

The spoils had never been made lawful for anyone before us; yet Allah, Blessed and Exalted, saw our weakness and inability and therefore made them lawful for us. In another wording: “When that happened the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, ‘Allah has provided us with the spoils as a mercy and a relief, because He knows our weakness.’”

This is an authentic and noble ḥadīth that Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) preserved for us. It reaches us from him through four routes:

The first: Imām Aḥmad (2 / 325) said: “Aswad ibn ʿĀmir narrated to us, Abū Bakr narrated to us from Hishām, from Ibn Sīrīn, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ …” and he mentioned the first version.
Al-Ṭaḥāwī likewise reported it in Mushkil al-Āthār (2 / 10) through two other chains from Aswad ibn ʿĀmir.

I say: This isnād is good. All of its transmitters are trustworthy and are found in the two Ṣaḥīḥs, except for Abū Bakr—namely Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh—who is found only in al-Bukhārī. There is some discussion about him, yet his ḥadīths do not fall below the level of ḥasan. The best statement I have read about him is that of Ibn Ḥibbān in his biographical entry in al-Thiqāt (2 / 324):

علي شيئا، فحبست عليه، حتى فتح الله عليه، " فغنموا الغنائم "، قال: فجمعوا ما غنموا، فأقبلت النار لتأكله، فأبت أن تطعمه " وكانوا إذا غنموا الغنمية بعث الله تعالى عليها النار فأكلتها " فقال: فيكم غلول، فليبايعني من كل قبيلة رجل، فبايعوه، فلصقت يد رجل بيده، فقال: فيكم الغلول، فلتبايعني قبيلتك، فبايعته، قال: فلصقت بيد رجلين أو ثلاثة " يده "، فقال: فيكم الغلول، أنتم غللتم، " قال: أجل قد غللنا صورة وجه بقرة من ذهب "، قال: فأخرجوه له مثل رأس بقرة من ذهب، قال: فوضعوه في المال، وهو بالصعيد، فأقبلت النار فأكلته، فلم تحل الغنائم لأحد من قبلنا، ذلك بأن الله تبارك وتعالى رأى ضعفنا وعجزنا فطيبها لنا، " وفي رواية " فقال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم عند ذلك: إن الله أطعمنا الغنائم رحمة بنا وتخفيفا، لما علم من ضعفنا ". هذا حديث صحيح جليل، مما حفظه لنا أبو هريرة ﵁ وله عنه أربع طرق: الأولى: قال الإمام أحمد (٢ / ٣٢٥) . حدثنا أسود بن عامر، حدثنا أبو بكر عن هشام عن ابن سيرين عن أبي هريرة قال: قال رسول الله ﷺ .... فذكر الرواية الأولى. وهكذا أخرجه الطحاوي في " مشكل الآثار " (٢ / ١٠) من طريقين آخرين عن الأسود بن عامر به. قلت: وهذا إسناد جيد، رجاله كلهم ثقات من رجال الشيخين عدا أبا بكر وهو ابن عياش، فإنه من رجال البخاري وحده، وفيه كلام، لا ينزل به حديثه عن رتبة الحسن، وأحسن ما قرأت فيه قول ابن حبان في ترجمته من " الثقات " (٢ / ٣٢٤) :