- “The five daily prayers, from one Friday prayer to the next, and from one Ramadan to the next are expiations for whatever lies between them, provided that major sins are avoided.”
Aḥmad recorded it (2/400): Hārūn narrated to us: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wahb narrated to us; he said: Abū Ṣakhr Ḥumayd ibn Ziyād informed me that ʿUmar ibn Isḥāq, a client of Zā’idah, related to him from his father, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, would say this. He then cited it.
I say: This chain meets Muslim’s condition, though ʿUmar ibn Isḥāq is of unknown status, as will be explained. Hārūn was Ibn Maʿrūf, a contemporary of Imam Aḥmad, as stated in al-Dhahabī’s Siyar (11/181). Another Hārūn and others also corroborated him.
Muslim stated in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1/144): “Abū al-Ṭāhir and Hārūn ibn Saʿīd al-Aylī narrated to me; they said: Ibn Wahb informed us,” through the same chain.
Al-Bayhaqī also recorded it in al-Shuʿab (3/308/3619), and al-Mizzī in Tahdhīb al-Kamāl (12/273–274), through their chain from Hārūn ibn Saʿīd ibn al-Haytham, through the same chain. Al-Bukhārī likewise recorded it in al-Tārīkh (3/2/140–141) by another route from Ibn Wahb.
I say: No one besides Ibn Ḥibbān and al-ʿIjlī declared ʿUmar ibn Isḥāq trustworthy. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said: “Acceptable.”
He has been corroborated, as will follow. In my view—and Allah knows best—one should not state unqualifiedly in his biographical entry that Muslim narrated from him, without clarifying that Muslim cited him only as a corroborating narration. For it is stated in al-Tahdhīb that Muslim narrated from him only this one hadith, but he included it only after the route that he cited from the narration of