- “There are three to whom Allah will not speak on the Day of Resurrection, nor look upon them, nor purify them; and theirs will be a painful punishment: a man who has surplus water in the desert and withholds it from a traveller; a man who sells an article to another man after the afternoon prayer and swears by Allah that he acquired it for such-and-such an amount, so the buyer believes him, though that is not so; and a man who pledges allegiance to a ruler only for worldly gain: if he is given some of it, he remains faithful, but if he is not given any of it, he does not remain faithful.”
It was narrated from Abu Hurayrah. Abu Salih narrated it from him, and two transmitters narrated it from Abu Salih:
The first: al-A‘mash.
Al-Bukhari narrated it (2358, 2672, and 7212), as did Muslim (1/72)—whose wording is cited here—al-Tirmidhi (1595), Abu Dawud (3474), Ibn Majah (2207 and 2870), Ahmad (2/253 and 480), Ibn Mandah in al-Iman (622 and 625), al-Tahawi in Mushkil al-Athar (3488), al-Bayhaqi (5/330 and 8/106), and in al-Asma’ wa al-Sifat (1/353), and al-Khara’iti in Masawi al-Akhlaq (125), through various routes from him, with the wording of the hadith under this heading.
Muslim (1/72), al-Nasa’i in al-Sughra (7/246–247) and al-Kubra (6020), Abu ‘Awanah (1/41), Ibn Mandah (623 and 624), and al-Bayhaqi (10/177) also narrated it through various routes from him with the same wording, except that he said:
“And a man who swore that he had been offered more for his goods than he had actually been offered,” instead of: “And a man who pledges allegiance to a ruler only for worldly gain.”