- “Two groups from my community will not come to me at the Basin: the Qadariyyah and the Murji’ah.”
It was recorded by al-‘Uqaylī in al-Ḍu‘afā’ (p. 156), al-Ṭabarī in al-Tahdhīb (2/180/1472), Ibn Abī ‘Āṣim in al-Sunnah (949), and al-Lālakā’ī in Sharḥ al-Sunan (4/142/1157), through Baqiyyah, who said: Sulaymān ibn Ja‘far al-Azdī narrated to us from Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā, from his father, from his grandfather, attributing it to the Prophet with this wording.
Al-‘Uqaylī said: “Sulaymān ibn Ja‘far is unknown as a transmitter of hadith, and no one corroborates his hadith.” He then cited this hadith of his and said: “He is corroborated only by one who is like him or weaker than him.”
I say: Perhaps he is referring to the hadith of Anas, attributed to the Prophet with the same wording, except that it adds: “and they will not enter Paradise.” Al-Haythamī cited it (7/207) and said: “Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in al-Awsaṭ, and its narrators are those of the Ṣaḥīḥ, apart from Hārūn ibn Mūsā al-Farawī, who is trustworthy.”
It should be known that this statement of al-Haythamī—which he repeats frequently—does not rule out the weakness to which al-‘Uqaylī alluded. The trustworthiness of the narrators in a chain of transmission does not necessarily entail its authenticity, as is well known to those versed in this noble science. It may contain concealment in transmission or a break in the chain; or one of its narrators may have been deemed weak, even if he is among the narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ—particularly when he is cited therein alongside another narrator or in a suspended report—or there may be other defects affecting the soundness of the chain. Reflect on this.
I then came across al-Ṭabarānī’s chain in al-Awsaṭ, where he says (1/253/1): ‘Alī ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Farghānī narrated to us: Hārūn ibn Mūsā al-Farawī informed us: Abū Ḍamrah Anas ibn ‘Iyāḍ informed us, from Ḥumayd, from Anas, who said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, said: