“trustworthy, truthful.”
I say: Even though he is indeed trustworthy, as we have seen, someone more reliable and with a better memory disagreed with him in the chain. Al-Nasāʾī, after citing his previous route, said:
“ʿAmr ibn Zurārah informed us; Ismāʿīl narrated to us; Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd narrated to us from Jarīr ibn Yazīd, from Abū Zurʿah, who said that Abū Hurayrah declared: ‘The enforcement of a fixed legal penalty …’ ”
This ʿAmr ibn Zurārah is Ibn Wāqid al-Naysābūrī, the reciter and ḥāfiẓ. The critics unanimously describe him as trustworthy; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (Ibn Ḥabīb al-Naysābūrī, himself reliable and knowledgeable) even said, “trustworthy, trustworthy.” He is unquestionably more reliable than Ibn Qudāmah, about whom the verdicts were merely “there is nothing wrong with him” and “truthful.” For this reason the Two Shaykhs (al-Bukhārī and Muslim) relied upon Ibn Zurārah but not upon the latter. Ibn Zurārah differs from him in two respects:
- He stopped the report at Abū Hurayrah, whereas the other raised it to the Prophet.
- He named Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd’s teacher as Jarīr ibn Yazīd, while the other called him ʿAmr ibn Saʿīd. The latter is trustworthy, whereas the former is weak, as mentioned earlier.
Because they disagree over the name, the report of Ibn Zurārah is to be preferred, for he is the more reliable transmitter. Consequently, this narration reverts to the first route, and that route is weak, as you already know.
Later I found a corroboration for Ibn Zurārah: al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Zaʿfarānī narrated it, and al-Maḥāmalī recorded it from him in al-Amālī (1/72/1).
In any case, the ḥadīth is judged good (ḥasan) by virtue of supporting reports, for it has a witness from Ibn ʿAbbās, raised to the Prophet, with the wording:
“A fixed legal penalty carried out in the land is purer for it than forty days of rain.”
Samawayh collected it in al-Fawāʾid, and al-Ṭabarānī included it in both al-Kabīr and al-Awsat with a chain of transmission.
Al-Mundhirī and al-ʿIrāqī said: