The Hadeeth, “If you see poverty coming to you then say, ‘Welcome, O sign of the righteous’”

Question

How sound is the hadeeth (prophetic narration), “Allah revealed to one of His prophets, ‘If you see poverty coming to you then say, Welcome, O sign of the righteous, and if you see richness coming to you, then say, A sin whose punishment has been hastened’”?

Praise be to Allah.

This hadeeth was narrated by al-Daylami in Musnad al-Firdaws – as al-Hafiz al-‘Iraqi said – from the report of Makhool from Abu’l-Darda. It is a da’eef (weak) hadeeth, for Makhool did not hear anything from Abu’l-Darda.

See Takhreej Ihya ‘Uloom al-Deen, 4/191.

It was also narrated by Abu Na’eem in al-Hilyah (6/5) from the report of Mujahid from Ka’b al-Ahbar.

And he narrated it in 6/37 from the report of Qutadah from Ka’b al-Ahbaar.

Both isnads (chains of narration) include Ishaq ibn Bishr al-Kahili, who is matrook [i.e., his hadeeth is not accepted]. Abu Zar’ah said: he used to tell lies.

Al-Daraqutni said he is kaththab matrook (i.e., a liar whose hadeeth is not to be accepted). Al-Azdi said: his hadeeth is to be rejected and is not valid, and he was accused of lying. Ibn Hibban said: he used to fabricate hadeeth and attribute them to trustworthy narrators (thiqat); his hadeeth should not be written down except by way of amusing oneself with something weird.

See al-Jarh wa’l-Ta’deel, 2/214; al-Du’afa wa’l-Matrookeen by Ibn al-Jawzi, 1/100.

He is one of the storytellers and time-wasters. Al-Thahabi said in his biography of him: the shaykh, the scholar, the storyteller, the weak narrator (da’eef), the time-waster, Abu Hudhayfah Ishaq ibn Bishr ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Abd-Allah ibn Salim al-Hashimi, whose teacher was al-Bukhari the author of al-Mubtada, which is a well known book in two volumes. Ibn Jareer and others narrated from him, and in it he spoke of weird and disastrous things.

Siyar A’lam al-Nubala, 9/477, 478.