that the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—was asked, “Which slaves are best?” He replied:

“Those most costly in price and most precious to their owners.”

Thus, he made it a hadith of Aisha, and this is anomalous.

The hadith under discussion has a corroborating report in the lengthy hadith of Abu Umamah, but its chain of transmission is weak, as explained in al-Ḍaʿīfah under no. 609.

It also has another corroborating report from Abu Hurayrah, similar to the hadith of Abu Dharr.

Aḥmad (2/388) narrated it with a chain whose narrators are all trustworthy and among the narrators of the two Ṣaḥīḥs, apart from Khalīfah ibn Ghālib al-Laythī, who is truthful, as al-Ḥāfiẓ stated in al-Taqrīb. Thus, the chain is good. *

3990—“The best fast is the fast of my brother David: he would fast one day and break his fast the next, and he would not flee when he met the enemy.”

Al-Tirmidhī (770) and Aḥmad (2/164 and 190) narrated it through Wakīʿ, from Misʿar and Sufyān, from Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit, from Abū al-ʿAbbās, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, who said: The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said: ... and he mentioned it.

Al-Bukhārī (3419) and Muslim (3/165) also narrated it through two other routes from Misʿar alone, with similar wording, except that Muslim did not give its wording in full.

Al-Tirmidhī said:

“A good, authentic hadith!”