The virtue of paying off a deceased person’s debt
- “Is there anyone here from such-and-such a clan? Your companion is being detained at the gate of Paradise because of a debt he owes.”
Al-Ṭayālisī recorded it in his Musnad (891/121): Shuʿbah narrated to us, saying: Firās informed me, saying: I heard al-Shaʿbī say: I heard Samurah ibn Jundub say:
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ prayed the dawn prayer, then said: … and he mentioned it.
I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission, every link of which explicitly states direct hearing. Some of them narrated it from al-Shaʿbī, from Simʿān ibn Mushannaj, from Samurah, both in abbreviated and extended form. It is cited in Aḥkām al-Janāʾiz (p. 26, al-Maʿārif edition), where I said:
“It is authentic in the first form, according to the conditions of the two Shaykhs, as al-Ḥākim stated and al-Dhahabī concurred; in the second form, it is merely authentic.”
This is because a group of scholars declared this Simʿān trustworthy, even though they mentioned no transmitter from him other than al-Shaʿbī. This was only due to the esteem and high regard in which they held al-Shaʿbī, such that Ibn Maʿīn said:
“If al-Shaʿbī narrates from a man and names him, then he is trustworthy and his hadith may be used as proof.”
Al-ʿIjlī said in his al-Thiqāt (751/244):
“Al-Shaʿbī’s mursal reports are authentic; he narrates as mursal only that which is authentic, authentic.”
Despite all this, al-Bukhārī deemed it defective due to a break in the chain. In Simʿān’s entry in al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr (204/2/2), he said:
“We know of no direct hearing by Simʿān from Samurah, nor by al-Shaʿbī from Simʿān.”