- “Do not eat while reclining, nor eat upon a sieve. Do not designate a place in the mosque in which you alone pray, and do not step over people’s necks on Friday, lest Allah make you a bridge for them on the Day of Resurrection.”
Ibn ʿAsākir transmitted it in The History of Damascus (13/391), saying: Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Rizqūyah informed us; Abū al-ʿAbbās ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥammād al-ʿAskarī narrated to us, by dictation, in the year 338 AH; Ayyūb ibn Sulaymān al-Ṣughdī narrated to us; Abū al-Yamān narrated to us; Arṭāh ibn al-Mundhir narrated from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ruzayq al-Alhānī, from ʿAmr ibn al-Aswad al-ʿAnsī, from Abū al-Dardāʾ, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said ... and he cited it.
He said:
“Al-Khaṭīb said: Abū al-Yamān gave him this name and lineage, but he erred in doing so. What is correct is that he was Ruzayq, Abū ʿAbd Allāh. This is how Abū Mishar ʿAbd al-Aʿlā ibn Mishar, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Bukhārī, and Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī identified him.”
I say: Ibn Ḥibbān likewise mentioned him in both of his books, The Reliable Narrators (4/239) and The Weak Narrators (1/301)—which is one of his inconsistencies! The former judgment is more likely, in view of Ibn Abī Ḥātim’s statement (1/2/505):
“Abū Zurʿah was asked about him, and he said: ‘He was from Homs; there is no harm in him.’”
For this reason, al-Dhahabī said in al-Mughnī:
“Truthful. Ibn Ḥibbān said: ‘He is not relied upon as evidence.’”
In The Balance, he combined this statement of Ibn Ḥibbān with that of Abū Zurʿah, but overlooked the fact that he appears in Ibn Ḥibbān’s The Reliable Narrators. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said in al-Taqrīb:
“Truthful, but prone to errors.”