Muwatta 291

A long hadith from the chapter "on the hour on Friday". Malik transmits it from Yazid ibn Abdallah ibn al-Had, from Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Taymi, from Abu Salama ibn Abd al-Rahman, from Abu Hurayra. It gathers three meetings: with Ka'b al-Ahbar, with Abu Basra al-Ghifari, and with Abdullah ibn Salam ¹.

Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him) went out to Mount Tur and met Ka'b al-Ahbar and sat with him. Ka'b told him about the Torah, and Abu Hurayra told him about the Prophet ﷺ. Among what he related was the saying: "The best day on which the sun has risen is Friday. On it Adam was created, on it he was made to descend from the Garden, on it his repentance was accepted, on it he died, and on it the Hour will come." He also related that every creature listens attentively on Friday from the morning until sunrise, out of awe of the Hour, except jinn and humans; and that there is an hour on it in which no Muslim servant who is praying and asks God for anything will fail to be given it. Ka'b said: "That is one day in every year." Abu Hurayra said: "No, in every Friday." Then Ka'b read the Torah and said: "The Messenger of God spoke the truth" ¹.

Abu Hurayra then met Abu Basra al-Ghifari (may God be pleased with him), and asked him where he had come from. When he told him that he came from Mount Tur, Abu Basra said: "Had I met you before you went out, you would not have gone out." He related to him that the Prophet said: "Journeys are made only to three mosques: to the Sacred Mosque, to this mosque of mine, and to the mosque of Iliya or Bayt al-Maqdis" ¹.

Then he met Abdullah ibn Salam and told him about his session with Ka'b. Ibn Salam said that Ka'b had been wrong in saying that the Hour falls on one day each year. When Abu Hurayra told him that Ka'b had returned to saying that it is every Friday, Ibn Salam said: "Ka'b has spoken the truth," and then said that he knows which hour it is: it is the last hour of Friday. Abu Hurayra found it hard to accept that it is an hour in which no prayer is performed, so Ibn Salam reminded him of the saying of the Prophet: "Whoever sits in a place waiting for the prayer is in prayer until he prays" ².

The editor explains Ibn Salam's words "Ka'b lied" as meaning "Ka'b erred" in the dialect of the Hijaz. Ibn Abd al-Barr says that he knows of no one who transmitted this hadith better than Malik from Ibn al-Had, nor more complete in its meaning. However, Malik says in it "Basra ibn Abi Basra", and no one else follows him in this. The known version, from the transmission of Yahya ibn Abi Kathir, Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab and Sa'id al-Maqburi from Abu Hurayra, is "I met Abu Basra al-Ghifari", and the error is thought to come from Malik or from Ibn al-Had (al-Tamhid 23/37–38). The hadith is also in Abu Dawud (1046), al-Tirmidhi (491), al-Hakim (1/278), Ahmad, al-Shafi'i and al-Bayhaqi, through the transmitters of Malik. ^{1 2}

The hadith is a foundation among Sunnis for the merit of Friday and the hour of answered supplication on it, and for the hadith on setting out to the three mosques. It also gives a picture of the sessions of the Companions with Ka'b al-Ahbar and Abdullah ibn Salam, comparing what is in the Torah with what the Prophet brought. See Prayer. ²