Note: Dr. Suʿād made two errors in her annotation on Makārim al-Akhlāq concerning this hadith. After providing biographies of each of its narrators individually, she said:
“Its chain of transmission is weak: it contains Ibn Lahīʿah and Darrāj ibn Samʿān, and both are weak!”
She thus overlooked the corroborating transmission of ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith found in Ibn Ḥibbān and elsewhere. This only confirms how limited her ability is in tracing the hadiths of the book and critically assessing them.
She also overlooked the preceding verification concerning Darrāj: that his narrations are sound when they are not related from Abū al-Haytham. Strangely, she cited the statement of al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar which supports this, but it appeared in her work as follows:
“Truthful in his reports from Abū al-Haytham; weak!”
This reverses both al-Ḥāfiẓ’s intended meaning and his wording, as is evident. I do not know whether this was a typographical or scribal error, or a misunderstanding. Perhaps the latter is supported by her definitive judgment that Darrāj is weak, for I do not think that she possesses such intellectual audacity—or such confidence in her expertise in this field—as to venture to contradict al-Ḥāfiẓ. And Allah knows best. *
- “Yes—by Him in Whose Hand is my soul—vigorously and repeatedly; then, when he rises from her, she will return purified and a virgin.”
Ibn Ḥibbān (2633–2634), Abū Nuʿaym in Ṣifat al-Jannah (2/232/393), and al-Ḍiyāʾ al-Maqdisī likewise in Ṣifat al-Jannah (fol. 83/1, al-Ẓāhiriyyah manuscript) recorded it through ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith, from Darrāj, from Ibn Ḥujayrah, from Abū Hurayrah, from the Messenger of Allah, who was asked, “Will we have intercourse in Paradise?” He replied: “...” and then cited it.