Arba'un 28 — fear of God and beware of novelties

الأربعون 28 — أوصيكم بتقوى الله وإياكم ومحدثات الأمور

The hadith of al-Irbad ibn Sariya that the Messenger of God ﷺ admonished them with an admonition at which hearts trembled and eyes wept, so they said it was like a parting admonition and asked for counsel — the twenty-eighth of al-Nawawi's Forty and of Ibn Rajab's commentary; transmitted by Abu Dawud (4607) and al-Tirmidhi (2676, graded hasan sahih), Ibn Majah and the Imam Ahmad through Thawr ibn Yazid from Khalid ibn Ma'dan from Abd al-Rahman ibn Amr al-Sulami and Hujr ibn Hujr al-Kila'i from him; al-Hafiz Abu Nu'aym called it a good hadith among the soundest of the Syrians and held the two Shaykhs did not drop it out of rejection, while al-Hakim claimed their reason was a supposition that Thawr was Khalid's only transmitter — though Bahir ibn Sa'd and Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Taymi also carry it — which Ibn Rajab counters: the hadith is not on their condition anyway, for neither narrated anything from Abd al-Rahman ibn Amr nor Hujr, men not famed for practice and transmission; it also comes through Khalid from Ibn Abi Bilal from al-Irbad, and the Damra ibn Habib route adds 'I have left you upon the white way whose night is as its day; none swerves from it after me but is destroyed', plus 'the believer is like the familiar camel — wherever it is led it follows', an addition a group of memorisers — Ahmad ibn Salih al-Misri among them — denounced as interpolated and attributed to Asad ibn Wada'a's insertion; Ibn Majah's route through Abdullah ibn al-Ala' ibn Zabr from Yahya ibn Abi al-Muta' with explicit hearing from al-Irbad is outwardly a fine connected chain, noted in al-Bukhari's Tarikh, yet the Syrian memorisers — Abu Zur'a al-Dimashqi reporting from Duhaym — denied Yahya ever met al-Irbad, and Ibn Rajab observes al-Bukhari does make slips in Syrian reports where these men know their own shaykhs better; the Burayda route does not stand; in the commentary, 'you will see much disagreement' is foretelling of what befell the community in roots and branches, matching the seventy-odd sects reports; the command to hear and obey even should a slave be set over them is supported by 'the imams are of Quraysh' from Anas — a sound hadith — and Ali's report in al-Hakim with a good chain though transmitted halted, preferred so by al-Daraqutni, some saying the Abyssinian slave is mentioned only by way of example; 'bite on it with the molar teeth' is a figure for firmest adherence, nawajidh being the back teeth; the Rightly Guided are so named for knowing the truth and judging by it — rashid being the contrary of ghawi, who knows the truth and acts otherwise — while 'guided' (mahdiyyin) means God guides them to the truth and does not lead them astray, giving three classes: the guided who knows and follows, the deviant who knows and does not, and the astray who does not know at all; and 'beware of newly introduced matters, for every innovation is error' warns the community against following invented matters, innovation meaning what is introduced with no foundation in the Law to indicate it — whatever has a basis in the Law is no innovation legally though it may be linguistically — with Jabir's sermon report in Sahih Muslim 'the worst of matters are their novelties, and every innovation is error', and the Tirmidhi–Ibn Majah route through the weak Kathir ibn Abdullah al-Muzni — called a pillar of lying by al-Shafi'i — for 'whoever invents a misleading innovation bears its burden and the burden of whoever acts on it' (Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam pp. 581–601).