“This hadith of Ibn Abbas qualifies the hadith of Abu Sa id: ‘When one of you is praying, he must not allow anyone to pass in front of him.’ The latter applies only to the imam and to the person praying alone; as for the congregational follower, whoever passes in front of him does not affect his prayer, because of this report from Ibn Abbas.” He then said, “On this point there is no disagreement among the scholars.” As for the hadith of al-Fadl ibn Abbas: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ visited Abbas in one of our desert dwellings. We had a little dog and a she-donkey grazing there. The Prophet led the afternoon prayer while they were in front of him, and he neither drove them away nor moved them back.” This hadith is weak. It was transmitted by Abu Dawud (1/114), al-Nasa i (1/123), al-Tahawi (1/266), al-Daraqutni (141), al-Bayhaqi (2/278), and Ahmad (1/211–212) through the chain of Muhammad ibn Umar ibn Ali, from Abbas ibn Ubayd Allah ibn Abbas, from al-Fadl. The wording cited here is that of al-Nasa i, while Abu Dawud and Ahmad add the clause: “There was no sutrah in front of him.” Its defect is both a broken chain and an unknown narrator. Ibn Hazm states in al-Muhalla (4/13), “This report is unsound, because Abbas ibn Ubayd Allah never met his uncle al-Fadl.” Ibn Hajar concurs in Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, and Ibn al-Qattan remarks, “His status is unknown—what a poor narrator this Abbas is!” In al-Taqrib he is merely graded “maqbul” (tolerated/acceptable). From what has preceded, it becomes clear that the statement of al-Nawawi (3/251) and of al-Hafidh Abu Zur ah, the son of al-Hafidh al-Iraqi, in Sharh al-Taqrib (2/389)