in grading reports as good and authentic?! Even if, for argument’s sake, we were to concede that they are weak—as he claims—why not say that some of them strengthen others, as is the well-known principle among the scholars?! How far this statement—and its author—are from the statement of al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī:
“We have become certain, through chains whose force cannot be gainsaid, that the Prophet, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, prohibited anal intercourse with women, and we have decisively affirmed its prohibition. I have written a large monograph on the matter.”
See Ādāb al-Zifāf (p. 106, Islamic Library edition).
*******
- “Whoever among you can avoid having even a palmful of a Muslim man’s blood that he has shed—as though he were slaughtering a chicken—come between him and Paradise: whenever he comes to one of the gates of Paradise, Allah will bar him from it. And whoever is able to put nothing but wholesome food in his stomach should do so, for the first part of a person to decay is his stomach.”
Al-Ṭabarānī reported it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (2/171/1662) through Abū Kāmil al-Jaḥdarī; and al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ (9/225/8490) and al-Bayhaqī in Shuʿab al-Īmān (4/347/5350) both reported it through Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Aswad. They said: Abū ʿAwānah narrated to us, from Qatādah, from al-Ḥasan, from Jundab ibn ʿAbd Allāh, who said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, said: ...—and he then cited it. The wording is al-Bayhaqī’s. He said:
“Abū Kāmil likewise narrated it from Abū ʿAwānah as attributed to the Prophet, but the sound version is attributed to the Companion.”
Al-Haythamī said (7/297):
“Al-Ṭabarānī reported it in al-Awsaṭ and al-Kabīr, and its narrators are narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ collections.”
This is more precise than al-Mundhirī’s statement (3/203):
“Al-Ṭabarānī reported it, and its narrators are trustworthy.”