Here a question arises—as people say nowadays: What led these people to discard most of the hadiths they had declared authentic from what they called the “Refinement”?!

Undoubtedly, the answer is clear to every discerning person: to reduce the size of the book and give people the impression that they had compiled the authentic hadiths of al-Targhib in a single volume, so that they would be inclined to buy it! And Allah knows best what is in their hearts!

Even if we were to assume that they were sincere in this work of theirs, and in al-Targhib, that still would not justify what they did, for they are not scholars. We have already presented dozens of examples, some of them both laughable and heartbreaking at once! The hadith under discussion is one such example: they did not judge its chain of transmission to be good, although it is good according to the scholars—even according to beginners in this field. Then they judged it good on account of its corroborating reports, although, as has preceded, it does not have even a single corroborating report. Moreover, it is one of those thousands of hadiths that they discarded! May Allah guide them.

3420 — “Welcome, O House! How great you are, and how great is your sanctity! Yet the believer is held in greater sanctity by Allah than you. Allah has made one thing inviolable concerning you, and He has made three things inviolable concerning the believer: his blood, his property, and that he be thought ill of.”

Al-Bayhaqi recorded it in Shu‘ab al-Iman (The Branches of Faith) (5/296–297/6706), through two routes from Hafs ibn Abd al-Rahman, from Shibl, from Ibn Abi Najih, from Mujahid, from Ibn Abbas, who said:

The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) looked at the Kaaba and said:

“How great is your sanctity!”

In the other route: