and it is not possible, by any sound reasoning, for the answer to his question—“Do not eat ...”—to mean that eating is permissible, though disliked!

477 — “The Frequented House is in the seventh heaven. A thousand angels enter it every day, then do not return to it until the Hour is established.”

Ahmad (3/153), Ibn Jarir (27/11), al-Hakim (2/468), ʿAbd ibn Humayd in al-Muntakhab (folio 132/2), and Tammam in al-Fawaʾid (vol. 1, no. 67) transmitted it through the route of Hammad ibn Salamah, who said: Thabit al-Bunani narrated to us, from Anas, attributed to the Prophet.

I say: This chain of transmission is authentic according to Muslim’s conditions. Al-Hakim said: “According to the conditions of the two Shaykhs,” and al-Dhahabi agreed with him, but this is an error, for al-Bukhari did not transmit anything from Hammad.

Sulayman—namely Ibn al-Mughirah—also corroborated him from Thabit with a similar report. Ibn Jarir transmitted it, saying: Muhammad ibn Sinan al-Qazzaz narrated to us; Musa ibn Ismaʿil narrated to us; Sulayman narrated to us.

I say: This is a chain whose narrators are trustworthy narrators of the two Shaykhs, apart from al-Qazzaz, who is weak.

It also has another route in al-Bukhari (3/30–32), Muslim (1/103–104), and Ibn Jarir, through Qatadah from Anas, in the lengthy hadith of the Night Journey, which includes: “Then the Frequented House was raised up for me, and I said: ‘O Gabriel, what is this?’ He replied: ‘This is the Frequented House; angels enter it ...’”

It also has a corroborating report from Abu Hurayrah with similar wording, except that he said: “the lowest heaven.”