514 — “If you were forgiven for what you do to beasts, much would be forgiven you.”

Ahmad (6/441) narrated it: Al-Haytham ibn Kharijah narrated to us: Abu al-Rabi‘ Sulayman ibn ‘Utbah al-Sulami informed us, from Yunus ibn Maysarah ibn Halbasa, from Abu Idris, from Abu al-Darda’, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, who said it.

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Its narrators are trustworthy and well known, apart from Sulayman ibn ‘Utbah, the Damascene al-Darani, concerning whom scholars differed. Ahmad said, “I do not know him,” and Ibn Ma‘in said, “He is nothing.” Duhaym said, “He is trustworthy,” and Abu Mushir, al-Haytham ibn Kharijah, Hisham ibn ‘Ammar, and Ibn Hibban likewise declared him trustworthy. Although those who declared him trustworthy are more numerous, they were Damascenes like the biographee himself; thus, they knew him better than outsiders did. Allah knows best.

Al-Hafiz said in al-Taqrib: “Truthful, with odd reports.” ‘Abdullah ibn Ahmad said in his additions to al-Musnad (6/442): “Al-Haytham ibn Kharijah narrated to me from Abu al-Rabi‘ all these hadiths, except that he attributed the hadith, ‘If you were forgiven for what you do …,’ to Abu al-Darda’. Yet my father narrated it to us from him as a report attributed to the Prophet.”

I say: The father was more eminent than the son and had a stronger memory; both are authoritative. It is not unlikely that he felt energetic on one occasion and thus attributed the hadith to the Prophet, while on another he did not and thus attributed it to the Companion. It therefore appears that al-Haytham narrated it to Ahmad as a report attributed to the Prophet