knowledge in Saudi Arabia—may Allah reward him well—in a booklet of his that he had sent me. Then I learned that he had died suddenly; may Allah Most High have mercy on him.
The latter part of Abu Dharr’s hadith is supported by a hadith from Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri, which follows: “Be patient, Abu Sa‘id! For poverty reaches those of you who love me more swiftly than a torrent flows from the heights of a valley, or from the top of a mountain to its base.”
2828 — “Be patient, Abu Sa‘id! For poverty reaches those of you who love me more swiftly than a torrent flows from the heights of a valley, or from the top of a mountain to its base.”
Ahmad recorded it (3/42) through ‘Amr, from Sa‘id ibn Abi Sa‘id al-Khudri, from his father, who complained to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, about his need. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: … and he then cited it.
I say: Its narrators are trustworthy and are narrators of Muslim, apart from Sa‘id ibn Abi Sa‘id al-Khudri. No one declared him trustworthy other than Ibn Hibban (4/278), who mentioned that ‘Imran ibn Abi Anas and the people of Madinah narrated from him. However, al-Hafiz established that this ‘Imran narrated only from ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Sa‘id al-Khudri, and that the version attributing to ‘Imran a narration from Sa‘id ibn Abi Sa‘id al-Khudri is not preserved, as I have explained in the biographical notice on this Sa‘id in Taysir al-Intifa‘.
Accordingly, no one narrated from him except this ‘Amr, namely Ibn al-Harith al-Misri. Thus, this Sa‘id is counted among the unknown narrators—to the extent that al-Bukhari and Ibn Abi Hatim did not mention a single narrator from him in his biographical notice. He is therefore the hidden defect in this chain of transmission.
Al-Haythami confused this narrator with someone else, supposing him to be the trustworthy Sa‘id ibn Abi Sa‘id al-Maqburi. He therefore included the hadith in al-Majma‘ (10/374) as follows: “From Sa‘id ibn Abi Sa‘id al-Khudri, who complained …” the hadith, and said: