it occurred to me that each of them strengthens the other. For the first is narrated by Makhūl, a trustworthy Syrian narrator who died sometime in the teens after 100 AH, whereas the other is narrated by Abū Mijlaz—whose name was Lāḥiq ibn Ḥumayd—a trustworthy Basran narrator as well, who died in 106 AH, or, according to another view, 109 AH. Thus, the teachers of one must have differed from those of the other; and in such a case, it is most probable that each narrated it from a teacher other than the teacher of the other, so that each strengthens the other. This was indicated by Imam al-Shāfiʿī, may Allah have mercy on him, in al-Risālah, and was transmitted from him by more than one scholar, including al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī in Sharḥ ʿIlal al-Tirmidhī (1/299). Whoever wishes may refer to it.

It was therefore necessary to transfer the two hadiths from Ḍaʿīf al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr (6015 and 6018) to Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ, especially since they are supported by the hadiths that instruct that mosques be purified, cleaned, and perfumed with incense, among them the hadith that follows. I then found the two hadiths, with the wording cited from Ibn Shabbah, in the version of Abū Dāwūd’s al-Marāsīl that includes the chains of transmission (nos. 3 and 14).

2724 — “He used to instruct us to establish mosques in our residential quarters, to improve their construction, and to purify them.”

Aḥmad recorded it (5/371) through Ibn—[the original reads: Abī!] (1)—Isḥāq: ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr narrated to me from his grandfather, ʿUrwah, from one of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, who said: He then mentioned it.

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy and are among al-Bukhārī and Muslim’s narrators, apart from Ibn Isḥāq; but his hadith is good when he explicitly states that he heard it directly, as he has done here. The unidentified Companion does not detract from it—particularly since