“The implication of the hadith mentioned is that there was a bathhouse in Medina during the Prophet’s lifetime, whereas the reports indicate otherwise; and that he foretold the conquest, after him, of the lands of Syria that contained bathhouses, and the entry of groups of Companions into them at that time [two words here are illegible, having been damaged by water]. Likewise, Aisha and Umm Salama said this to those women who came to them after his death, among those who entered it (!). All of this is plainly evident and not hidden!”

This is what he said! Although some of the wording is obscure, its intended meaning is clear. In this, he follows some earlier writers, the earliest of whom, to my knowledge, was al-Khatib. After declaring Zabban’s hadith weak, al-Khatib said in al-Mudiḥ (1/362):

“Moreover, the hadith is unlikely to be authentic, because there were no bathhouses in Medina during the time of the Messenger of Allah, and bathhouses at that time existed only in the lands of Syria and Persia.”

He then adduced in support of this what he narrated through al-Ifriqi, from Abd al-Rahman ibn Rafi, from Abd Allah ibn Amr, attributed to the Prophet:

“The lands of the non-Arabs will be opened to you, and you will find in them houses called bathhouses …”

I say: It is most astonishing that he should cite such a hadith as proof, when al-Ifriqi is weak, as is his shaykh, as I had cited from al-Hafiz in Ghayat al-Maram (192), and then explained further in al-Daifah (6819).

Even stranger is that Shaykh al-Naji ignored this weakness, although al-Mundhiri indicated it (1/88/2), and al-Naji made no comment on it whatsoever. He ignored it by categorically attributing it to the Prophet in the words cited above: