al-ʿUsaylī—with an undotted ʿayn—in both the text and the annotation, out of ignorance and because they were misled by what appears in al-Mustadrak! Such is the state of scholarly verification in this day and age!

3363—“A false oath promotes the sale of merchandise but destroys one’s earnings”—and in another wording: “... the blessing.”

Aḥmad narrated it (2/235, 242, and 413), as did Abū Nuʿaym in al-Ḥilyah (9/233), through Aḥmad’s chain; Ibn Ḥibbān (7/204/4886); and al-Bayhaqī in al-Sunan (5/265), through several chains from al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: ... and he then mentioned it. The alternative wording occurs in one narration of Aḥmad.

Al-Bukhārī also narrated it through another chain from Abū Hurayrah, one more authentic than this, with the wording:

“Swearing promotes the sale of merchandise but wipes out the blessing.”

Muslim also narrated it, except that he said:

“... the profit.”

Its sources are cited in Ghāyat al-Marām (202/342).

The chain of transmission of the hadith under discussion is authentic according to al-Ḥākim’s criteria, yet al-Ḥākim did not include it, even though it meets his criteria. Perhaps he did not notice that the addition “false” does not occur in the narrations of the two Shaykhs, just as others failed to notice it, including al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿIrāqī. For when al-Ghazālī cited it in al-Iḥyāʾ in the same wording as the hadith under discussion, using the alternative wording, al-ʿIrāqī said in his documentation (2/75):

“Al-Bukhārī and Muslim both reported it from Abū Hurayrah with the wording: ‘Swearing’; and al-Bayhaqī has it with the author’s wording!”