2841 — “A servant’s faith cannot be sound until his heart is sound, and his heart cannot be sound until his tongue is sound. No man will enter Paradise whose neighbour is not safe from his harm.”

It was narrated by Aḥmad (3/198), Ibn Abī al-Dunyā in al-Ṣamt (no. 9), al-Kharāʾiṭī in al-Makārim (no. 442), and al-Quḍāʿī in Musnad al-Shihāb (folio 75/1), through ʿAlī ibn Masʿadah al-Bāhilī, who said: Qatādah narrated to us from Anas ibn Mālik, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said it.

I say: Its narrators are trustworthy and are narrators of Muslim, apart from this al-Bāhilī, concerning whom there is disagreement. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said in al-Taqrīb: “Truthful, but prone to errors.” I say: Thus, his hadith is good, Allah willing, since no one is entirely free of errors; and unless it is established that he made an error, his narration remains evidence.

Al-ʿIrāqī said in Takhrīj al-Iḥyāʾ (3/94): “It was narrated by Ibn Abī al-Dunyā in al-Ṣamt and by al-Kharāʾiṭī in Makārim al-Akhlāq, with a chain containing weakness.” Al-Suyūṭī said in al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr: “Narrated by Aḥmad and ʿAbd al-Razzāq, and graded good.”

It has two other weak routes from Anas, traced back to the Prophet, with the wording: “None of you will fully attain the true reality of faith until he restrains his tongue.” Al-Bayhaqī narrated it in Shuʿab al-Īmān (2/73/2—manuscript).

He also has, there (1/41/8—printed edition), a corroborating report with trustworthy narrators, from al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, from one of his associates, traced back to the Prophet, but without the clause concerning the neighbour. Its documentation has already been given under no. 549.