unknown as to his status, and no one has declared him trustworthy. Moreover, even as a Companion statement, its chain is interrupted between Khalid and Abu al-Darda. This additional wording—“The scholar and the learner share in the reward...” —has also been transmitted as a Prophetic report through other chains from Abu al-Darda and others; but they are extremely weak, as I have explained in Irwa al-Ghalil (414).

Note: In his two Jamiʿ compilations, al-Suyuti attributed the hadith only to Ibn Majah on the authority of Abu Hurayrah, and to al-Tabarani’s al-Awsat on the authority of Ibn Masud. Al-Munawi did not comment on Abu Hurayrah’s chain of transmission, but only on that of Ibn Masud; and all he added was to quote al-Haythami’s aforementioned remark concerning its narrator, Abu al-Mutarrif: “I have not seen anyone who mentioned him.” This is in al-Fayd. In al-Taysir, however, he further reinforced the misleading impression, saying: “The author marked it as authentic, but it is not as he stated, since it contains an unknown narrator!”

I say: It contains the following errors, even though the committee of al-Jamiʿ al-Kabir approved it (55–10703)! First, he gave the impression that the unknown narrator is also in the chain of Abu Hurayrah’s hadith, whereas this is not so, as has preceded. Second, al-Suyuti’s symbols in al-Jamiʿ al-Saghir have no value, as we have pointed out repeatedly and explained in the introduction to Daʿif al-Jamiʿ and Sahih al-Jamiʿ. Al-Munawi himself drew attention to some of this in the introduction to al-Fayd. Third, he gave the impression that the hadith is weak, whereas this is not the case in view of Abu Hurayrah’s chain, which is good, as stated above; and it is further strengthened by the hadith of Jabir. And Allah knows best.