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Jami' al-Tirmidhi · 2317

Leaving what does not concern you

Adds the chain, each narrator's record, and the scholars' verdicts.

مِنْ حُسْنِ إِسْلاَمِ الْمَرْءِ تَرْكُهُ مَا لاَ يَعْنِيهِ

Part of the excellence of a person's Islam is their leaving what does not concern them.

Disputedمختلف فيهHasan to al-Nawawi and, by corroboration, to al-Arna'ut and al-Albani; but most early masters held this connected chain to be an error and the version without a Companion (mursal) to be the sound one.
Source: Jami' al-Tirmidhi, 2317 · Book of Renunciation, chapter 11

The chain, person by person

  • Reliable
  • Truthful, lesser precision
  • Weak
  • Abandoned
  • Unassessed
  • Companion

Read upward from the book to the Prophet ﷺ. Click a narrator to see the record critics kept on them.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺd. 11 AH, MadinahAbu Hurayrad. 58 AH · MadinahAbu Salama ibn Abd al-Rahmand. 94 AH · MadinahReliableal-Zuhrid. 125 AH · Madinah, later SyriaReliableQurra ibn Abd al-Rahmand. 147 AH · EgyptTruthful, lesser precisional-Awza'id. 157 AH · Damascus, then BeirutReliableIsma'il ibn Sama'aexact year not recorded; placed in the decade 181–190 AH · Damas…ReliableAbu Mushird. 218 AH · DamascusReliableAhmad ibn Nasr al-Naysaburid. 245 AH · NishapurReliableal-Tirmidhid. 279 AH · TirmidhReliable
View this chain as a table
NarratorStandingDiedReceived it with
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺThe Prophet ﷺ11 AHsource
Abu HurayraCompanion58 AHthe Messenger of God ﷺ said (قال رسول الله ﷺ)
Abu Salama ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn AwfReliable94 AHfrom (عن)
Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Shihab al-ZuhriReliable125 AHfrom (عن)
Qurra ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Haywa'il al-Ma'afiriTruthful, lesser precision147 AHfrom (عن)
Abd al-Rahman ibn Amr al-Awza'iReliable157 AHfrom (عن)
Isma'il ibn Abdullah ibn Sama'aReliableexact year not recorded; placed in the decade 181–190 AHfrom (عن)
Abu Mushir Abd al-A'la ibn Mushir al-GhassaniReliable218 AHfrom (عن)
Ahmad ibn Nasr al-NaysaburiReliable245 AHnarrated to us (حدثنا)
Muhammad ibn Isa al-TirmidhiReliable279 AHnarrated to us (حدثنا)

Select a narrator to open their record: dates, teachers, and what the critics wrote, with the source for each line.

  • ·
  • · Reliable, a jurist, a hadith master and an ascetic.
  • · Reliable and of great merit.
  • · Reliable.
  • · Reliable and of great standing.
  • · Truthful, but has objectionable reports.
  • · The jurist and hadith master, agreed upon in eminence and precision.
  • · Reliable and prolific.
  • · Companion

Two shapes of one report

Al-Zuhri's students carried this report in two shapes, and the whole dispute is about which is the preserved one. The critics then asked whether the other routes from other Companions are independent enough to count as witnesses.

  1. The connected chain: al-Awza'i from Qurra
    Disputedمختلف فيه
    1. The Prophet ﷺthe Prophet ﷺ
    2. CompanionAbu Hurayra
    3. ReliableAbu Salama
    4. Reliableal-Zuhri
    5. Truthful, lesser precisionQurra ibn Abd al-Rahmantruthful, but has objectionable reports; most critics say he erred here
    6. Reliableal-Awza'i
    7. Reliablehis students, then al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah

    Hasan to al-Nawawi, because every other narrator is reliable; an error of Qurra's to al-Bukhari, al-Daraqutni, Ibn Rajab and Ibn Hajar, because al-Zuhri's stronger students did not carry it this way.

  2. The mursal: Malik and most of al-Zuhri's students
    Mursalتنبيه
    1. The Prophet ﷺthe Prophet ﷺ
    2. Missing linkno Companion namedthe gap that makes it mursal
    3. ReliableAli ibn al-Husayn
    4. Reliableal-Zuhri
    5. ReliableMalik, Ma'mar, Yunus, Ibrahim ibn Sa'd

    In the Muwatta and at al-Tirmidhi 2318. Held to be the preserved form by Ahmad, Ibn Ma'in, al-Bukhari, al-Tirmidhi, al-Daraqutni and Ibn Rajab: sound as far as Ali ibn al-Husayn, but with the Companion missing it cannot stand as a Prophetic report on its own.

  3. A witness from another Companion: al-Husayn ibn Ali
    Weak witnessضعيف
    1. The Prophet ﷺthe Prophet ﷺ
    2. Companional-Husayn ibn Ali
    3. ReliableAli ibn al-Husayn
    4. Reliableal-Zuhri
    5. WeakAbdullah ibn Umar al-Umariweak; “not a memoriser”, says Ibn Rajab
    6. Truthful, lesser precisionMusa ibn Dawud, then Ahmad

    Musnad Ahmad 1737. Al-Arna'ut counts this and the other routes as witnesses that lift the text to hasan; Ibn Rajab replies that this one is only the mursal with a Companion wrongly added by a weak narrator, and that the rest are all weak. Whether a witness is independent is the hinge of the whole argument.

Tinted names appear in more than one route: al-Zuhri, Ali ibn al-Husayn. Routes that share a narrator below the Companion are not independent of each other at that point.

Who graded it, and why

We do not grade hadith. Each line is a named scholar's verdict, where they gave it, and the reason they gave. Disagreement is shown, not resolved.

ScholarVerdictWhereReason given
al-Tirmidhi
d. 279 AH
Gharib; the mursal is sounderتنبيهJami' al-Tirmidhi 2317–2318
Knows the Abu Hurayra route only through this chain. After recording Malik's mursal, says that version is, to him, more correct.
al-Bukhari
d. 256 AH
Sound only as mursalضعيفal-Tarikh al-Kabir 4/220
The version with the gap is more correct; the report is not sound except from Ali ibn al-Husayn directly from the Prophet ﷺ, with no Companion named (what Ibn Rajab summarises as “only as mursal”).
al-Daraqutni
d. 385 AH
The mursal is correctضعيفal-Ilal 310, 3024, 3158; and 8/25 on the Abu Hurayra route
Compared the versions attributed to al-Zuhri and holds the mursal from Ali ibn al-Husayn to be the correct form. In the Abu Hurayra entry he treats Qurra's version as what al-Awza'i actually transmitted, and still names the mursal as the preserved form alongside it.
Ibn Abd al-Barr
d. 463 AH
Both routes preservedحسنal-Tamhid 9/199
Only two chains from al-Zuhri are sound: Malik's mursal, which is more famous, and al-Awza'i's connected chain through Qurra. Everything else is error. Ibn Rajab reads this as supporting al-Nawawi's hasan.
al-Nawawi
d. 676 AH
Hasanحسنal-Arba'in 12; Riyad al-Salihin 67
Its narrators are reliable; Qurra was declared reliable by some and weak by others (so Ibn Rajab explains the grading).
Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali
d. 795 AH
Sound only as mursalضعيفJami' al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, hadith 12
Reports al-Nawawi's grade fairly, then sides with Ahmad, Ibn Ma'in, al-Bukhari and al-Daraqutni: the connected chain is not preserved, and the other routes are all weak.
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani
d. 852 AH
Qurra erredضعيفIthaf al-Mahara 16/205
The preserved form is the mursal in the Muwatta.
al-Albani
d. 1420 AH
SahihصحيحSahih al-Jami' 5911; Sahih al-Tirmidhi 2317
Accepts the text on the strength of its routes taken together.
al-Albani
d. 1420 AH
Hasan li-ghayrihiحسنSahih al-Targhib 2881
In a different book he gives the more cautious grade: sound because of its corroborating routes, not on its own.
Shu'ayb al-Arna'ut
d. 1438 AH
Hasan li-ghayrihiحسنTakhrij Musnad Ahmad 1732, 1737; Sahih Ibn Hibban 229
Each chain is weak on its own (Qurra; al-Umari; a break in the Husayn route), but the routes together with the sound mursal raise the text to hasan. In his takhrij of Riyad al-Salihin he goes further and calls it sound by its witnesses.
Zubair Ali Za'i
d. 1435 AH
Da'ifضعيفDarussalam edition of al-Tirmidhi, 2317
Grades the connected chain weak.

What this chain teaches about the method

One narrator decides the argument

Eight of the nine people in this chain are rated reliable by the critics without dispute. The argument is entirely about Qurra. Honest, said the critics, but with objectionable reports; and this, most of them concluded, is one of them. Everything downstream, hasan or error, is a judgement about one man's precision.

“From” is not “I heard”

Below Abu Mushir every link is ʿan, “from”. That is normal for this period and not in itself a fault. But it means the chain asserts less than Bukhari's first hadith does, where every narrator says he heard directly.

A text can rise by corroboration, or fail to

Later scholars gathered the other routes, each weak alone, and graded the text hasan li-ghayrihi, sound by its witnesses. Earlier masters replied that the routes return to the same error or run through abandoned narrators, so they corroborate nothing. The disagreement is about method, and both methods are on the record.

Fame is not a grade

This is hadith 12 of al-Nawawi's Forty, and one of four hadith Abu Dawud said would suffice a person for their religion. Its standing is real and its chain is contested. A record that could not hold both facts at once would be lying about one of them.

Terms used here

Mursal مرسل
A report in which a Successor says “the Prophet ﷺ said” without naming the Companion he heard it from. A gap at the top of the chain, and a category of weakness, though some jurists accepted mursal reports from certain narrators.
Mahfuz محفوظ
The “preserved” version: of two conflicting transmissions from the same teacher, the one the stronger students carry.
Munkar منكر
An objectionable report: what a weak narrator transmits in contradiction to the reliable.
Shahid شاهد
A witness: a separate chain, through a different Companion, carrying the same meaning.
Hasan li-ghayrihi حسن لغيره
Sound by its witnesses: a weak chain raised to acceptable by independent corroboration.
Maqrun مقرون
Paired: a narrator cited only alongside another, so that the report does not rest on him alone.

Context

Abu Dawud, compiler of the Sunan, is reported by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi to have said that four hadith suffice a person for their religion: “Actions are by intentions”, this one, “A believer is not a believer until he is content for his brother with what he is content with for himself”, and “The lawful is clear and the unlawful is clear”. Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani separately named it, as Ibn al-Salah reports, among four hadith from which all good manners branch.

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Sources for this page: Jami' al-Tirmidhi 2317 (sunnah.com) · Ibn Rajab, Jami' al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, hadith 12 (Wikisource) · A. al-Aqla, study of the hadith's routes (PDF) · Verdict index (dorar.net)
The Hadith ProjectDisputedمختلف فيه

مِنْ حُسْنِ إِسْلاَمِ الْمَرْءِ تَرْكُهُ مَا لاَ يَعْنِيهِ

Part of the excellence of a person's Islam is their leaving what does not concern them.

Jami' al-Tirmidhi, 2317
  1. Reliableal-Tirmidhi
  2. ReliableAhmad ibn Nasr al-Naysaburi
  3. ReliableAbu Mushir
  4. ReliableIsma'il ibn Sama'a
  5. Reliableal-Awza'i
  6. Truthful, lesser precisionQurra ibn Abd al-Rahman
  7. Reliableal-Zuhri
  8. ReliableAbu Salama ibn Abd al-Rahman
  9. CompanionAbu Hurayra
  10. The Prophet ﷺthe Prophet ﷺ
9 narrators · 11 scholarly verdicts on record
https://thehadithproject.com/h/leaving-what-does-not-concern/