I say: The hadith plainly indicates that perpetual fasting is prohibited. This was also the view of Ibn Hazm in al-Muhalla (7/12–16), who further adduced as evidence the Prophet’s saying: “Whoever fasts perpetually has neither fasted nor broken his fast.”

Many scholars have gone to great lengths to counter the import of these two reports by interpreting them figuratively, especially the first of them. Ibn Hibban construed it as referring to one who fasts continuously throughout the year, including the days of Eid and the days of Tashriq. Worse still is the interpretation offered by one who said: “Hell will be constricted so as to exclude him, and thus he will not enter it!”

Ibn Khuzaymah and others related this interpretation from al-Muzani. Ibn Hazm aptly refuted it, saying:

“This is both a linguistic blunder and a lie. As for the linguistic blunder: had this been what was intended, it would have said, ‘It was constricted away from him,’ rather than, ‘upon him.’ As for the lie: all of its transmitters have related it as a stern condemnation and prohibition of such fasting.”

See what I noted on al-Muzani’s statement in Sahih Ibn Khuzaymah (3/314). *

3203—“There will be migration after migration. The best people on earth will be those most devoted to Abraham’s place of migration. The worst of its people will remain on earth; their lands will cast them out, Allah will abhor them, and the Fire will gather them together with apes and swine.”

It was transmitted by Abu Dawud (1/388, Jihad), al-Hakim (4/486–487), ‘Abd al-Razzaq (11/376/20790), Ahmad (2/84, 198–199, and 209), Abu Nu‘aym in al-Hilyah (6/54 and 66), and Ibn ‘Asakir in Tarikh Dimashq (1/149 and 150, Damascus edition), through the route of Shahr ibn Hawshab, from ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Amr ibn al-‘As, attributed to the Prophet … and it includes a narrative.