in his book Tartīb al-Thiqāt. Thus, either it was omitted from it while he was arranging it, or it was not in his copy of al-Thiqāt. Allah knows best.

That said, there are many authentic hadiths conveying the same meaning. The closest of them is what Ibn ʿAjlān narrated from al-Qaʿqāʿ, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Abū Hurayrah, who said:

The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, would instruct us that, whenever one of us went to relieve himself, he should cleanse himself with three stones.

Al-Ṭaḥāwī recorded it in Sharḥ Maʿānī al-Āthār (1/73), as did others, and its chain is good. Al-Baghawī graded it authentic in Sharḥ al-Sunnah (1/356), and it is included in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd (6).

Other corroborating reports are documented in al-Irwāʾ (1/84/44) and Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd (nos. 31 and 32).

Benefit: It says in al-Nihāyah:

“The term ghāʾiṭ recurs repeatedly in hadith, meaning both the act of relieving oneself and the place where it is done.”

Al-Baghawī said in Sharḥ al-Sunnah (1/357):

“The original meaning of ghāʾiṭ is a low-lying tract of land. People would go there to relieve themselves, so they used it as a euphemism for the act itself, out of distaste for mentioning it by its explicit name.”

Note: Long ago, I documented the hadith under discussion in al-Ḍaʿīfah, no. 2461, through Abū al-Zubayr’s chain employing the “from” form, as well as the hadith of al-Sāʾib recorded by al-Ṭabarānī, before al-Ṭabarānī’s al-Awsaṭ was printed. When I came across it, along with the other chains and corroborating reports, I hastened to document it here and transfer it from Ḍaʿīf al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr to Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr, in discharge of scholarly trust and to absolve myself of liability. After that, I bear no responsibility for whatever faultfinders may allege or whatever may be falsely fabricated.