2801 — “Let none of you say, ‘I planted’; rather, let him say, ‘I tilled.’”

It was narrated by Ibn Jarir al-Tabari in al-Tafsir (27/114), al-Bazzar (1289), Ibn Hibban (5693—al-Ihsan), al-Tabarani in al-Awsat (1/149/1—the Zahiriyyah manuscript), Abu Nu‘aym in al-Hilyah (8/267), al-Sahmi in Tarikh Jurjan (369), and al-Bayhaqi in al-Sunan (6/138) and also in Shu‘ab al-Iman (4/2801), all through Muslim ibn Abi Muslim al-Jarmi: Makhallad ibn al-Husayn narrated to us from Hisham ibn Hassan, from Muhammad ibn Sirin, from Abu Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: ...

He then cited it. Muhammad said that Abu Hurayrah said: “Have you not heard Allah’s saying: ‘Have you considered what you till? Is it you who make it grow, or are We the Ones who make it grow?’”

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy, and are among Muslim’s narrators, apart from Muslim ibn Abi Muslim al-Jarmi. Ibn Hibban listed him in al-Thiqat (9/158) and said: “Al-Hasan ibn Sufyan and Abu Ya‘la narrated from him. He would sometimes err. He died in 240 AH.”

I say: Al-Khatib likewise declared him trustworthy in Tarikh Baghdad (13/100), and mentioned that he was a Baghdadi who settled in Tarsus and died there. I say: Al-Hafiz also graded as good, in al-Fath (4/351), a hadith of his concerning the prohibition of selling food before two measures have been made of it. It is documented in Hadiths on Sales in al-Mawsu‘ah. Al-Haythami did not identify him, saying regarding each of the two hadiths (4/98–99 and 120): “I have not found anyone who gives his biographical entry!” Shaykh al-A‘zami followed him in this in his annotations to Kashf al-Astar (2/86 and 96), as al-Manawi likewise followed him regarding the second of them in Fayd al-Qadir.