3284 — “May your mother be bereaved of you, O Muʿadh ibn Jabal! What casts people face-first, upon their nostrils, into Hell except the harvests of their tongues?!”

It was recorded by Ibn al-Bannāʾ in Juzʾ al-Sukūt wa Luzūm al-Buyūt (57/5), and by al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (20/127–128), through two routes from Abū Aḥmad al-Zubayrī, who said: ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Nakhaʿī related to us; Abū ʿAmr al-Shaybānī related to us from Muʿādh ibn Jabal, may Allah be pleased with him, who said:

I said, “O Messenger of Allah, will we be held accountable for everything we say?” He replied: … and he then cited it.

I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy and are among the narrators used by both al-Bukhārī and Muslim, apart from ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Nakhaʿī. He is unanimously considered trustworthy. Al-Bukhārī narrated from him in al-Adab al-Mufrad, as stated in Tahdhīb al-Mizzī and Taqrīb al-ʿAsqalānī. Yet in Tahdhīb al-ʿAsqalānī, he is marked with the symbol (Kh)! This appears to be a textual corruption, and Allah knows best.

Know that what prompted me to document this hadith—which is the final portion of a lengthy hadith of Muʿādh, may Allah be pleased with him—was that I had previously documented it at length through the narrations of al-Tirmidhī and others, by way of Abū Wāʾil, Shahr ibn Ḥawshab, and Maymūn ibn Abī Shaybah. Some of them add material beyond what others relate, and all of them are defective because of a break in the chain, except for one narration from Shahr, as will follow. I documented this in al-Irwāʾ (2/138–141). Their defects were also explained by al-Mundhirī in al-Targhīb (4/5–6), and then by Ibn Rajab in Sharḥ al-Arbaʿīn (p. 196), after which he remarked:

“His other routes are all weak.”

When I came across this chain of transmission for this portion, I hastened to document it because of its rarity and authenticity, in contrast to those other routes.