that Tamim al-Dari prayed two rak‘ahs after Umar ibn al-Khattab had forbidden prayer after Asr. Umar came to him and struck him with his whip, whereupon Tamim motioned to him to sit down while he was praying. Umar sat until Tamim had finished, and Tamim said to Umar: “Why did you strike me?!” He replied: “Because you prayed these two rak‘ahs, although I had forbidden them.” He said: … (then related it, adding) Umar said:

“It is not you men that I am concerned about. Rather, I fear that after you there will come people who will pray after Asr until Maghrib, until they enter the time in which the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade you to pray—just as they pray between Zuhr and Asr—and then say: ‘We saw so-and-so and so-and-so praying after Asr!’”

Al-Tabarani narrated it in al-Mu‘jam al-Kabir (2/48/2811) and al-Awsat (8/296/8684, al-Haramayn edition), and said: “It is narrated from Tamim only through this chain of transmission; al-Layth alone narrated it.”

I say: He and those above him are trustworthy narrators of the two Shaykhs, so it is an authentic chain of transmission, provided it is free of a break and of any weakness in Ibn Salih—who was al-Layth’s scribe.

It was on this basis that al-Haythami deemed it defective. After attributing it to the two Mu‘jams, he said:

“It includes Abdullah ibn Salih. Abd al-Malik ibn Shu‘ayb said of him: ‘Trustworthy and reliable,’ whereas Ahmad and others declared him weak.”

As for the hadith of Zayd ibn Khalid al-Juhani, Abu Sa‘d al-A‘ma narrates it from a man called al-Sa’ib, the client of the Persians, from him:

Umar ibn al-Khattab—while he was caliph—saw him pray two rak‘ahs after Asr. He walked over to him and struck him with his whip, while Zayd continued praying as he was. When he had finished, Zayd said: “Strike me, Commander of the Faithful!”