- “What is lawful is clear, and what is forbidden is clear; between them are doubtful matters. Whoever falls into them is liable to sin, while whoever avoids them better safeguards his religion. This is like one who grazes his flock beside a protected reserve and is soon likely to stray into it. Every ruler has a protected reserve, and Allah’s protected reserve is what He has forbidden.”
Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (10/404–405/1024), and Ibn ʿAsākir in Tārīkh Dimashq (7/1), through two routes from al-Walīd ibn Shujāʿ ibn al-Walīd, who said: “My father narrated to me: Sābiq al-Jazarī narrated to us that ʿAmr ibn Abī ʿAmr, the freedman of al-Muṭṭalib, informed him, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥārith, from Ibn ʿAbbās, that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said...” He then mentioned it.
I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission that is transmitted through at least two routes. All its narrators, apart from Sābiq al-Jazarī—who was Ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Raqqī—are trustworthy narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ. Ibn Ḥibbān (6/433) declared him trustworthy and said:
“Al-Awzāʿī and the people of al-Jazīrah narrated from him.”
I say: Ibn ʿAsākir named a group of them in Tārīkh Dimashq (7/1), and most of them are trustworthy. He devoted a lengthy biographical notice to him over eight large pages, mentioning that he came to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and recited to him poems on asceticism; that he was the imam of the mosque in al-Raqqah and the judge of its people; and that he has a shorter biographical notice in Tārīkh al-Raqqah (pp. 123–127).
It seems that al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar did not come across his biographical notice in Ibn ʿAsākir’s history. Consequently, in his entry on the man in al-Lisān, he did not mention these benefits that we have derived from it. It becomes clear that he was known for virtue, asceticism, leadership in prayer, and judicial office, and that eminent, trustworthy men narrated from him. The original source for his biographical notice was likewise unknown to his teacher al-Haythamī, who said in his documentation of the hadith (10/294):
“Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it, and it includes Sābiq al-Jazarī, whom I do not know.”
The three annotators, who merely reproduce reports, followed him in their annotations on al-Targhīb (2/543), and