2403 — ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Nufaylī narrated to us: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Madanī narrated to us, saying: I heard Ḥamzah ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥamzah al-Aslamī mention that his father told him, on the authority of his grandfather, who said: I said, "O Messenger of Allah, I am a man who owns pack animals, which I tend: I travel upon them and hire them out. It sometimes happens that this month — meaning Ramaḍān — coincides with my travels while I possess strength and am young, and I find that fasting, O Messenger of Allah, is easier for me than postponing it and it becoming a debt owed. So, O Messenger of Allah, if I fast, will it be greater for my reward, or should I break the fast?" He said: "Whichever of the two you wish, O Ḥamzah."(1)

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Then one group said: The better of the two matters is breaking the fast, and this is the view held by Ibn al-Musayyab, al-Shaʿbī, al-Awzāʿī, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh.

Anas ibn Mālik and ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ said: The better of the two matters is fasting while traveling, and this was also the view of al-Nakhaʿī and Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, and it is the view of Mālik, al-Thawrī, al-Shāfiʿī, and the partisans of ra'y (juridical opinion).

A third group said: The better of the two matters is whichever is easier for the person, due to His saying, the Mighty and Majestic: {Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship} [al-Baqarah: 185]. So if fasting is easier for him, he should fast, and if breaking the fast is easier, he should break the fast. This is the view held by Mujāhid, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and Qatādah.

(1) A sound ḥadīth, but this chain of transmission is weak. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Madanī is unknown, and only Abū Jaʿfar al-Nufaylī is reported to have narrated from him; Ibn Ḥibbān alone mentioned him in "al-Thiqāt." Ḥamzah ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥamzah al-Aslamī is also unknown, and no one has declared him trustworthy. It has, however, been narrated through other channels.

It was indeed transmitted with similar wording, in abbreviated form, by Muslim (1121), and by al-Nasāʾī in "al-Kubrā" (2622) and (2623) via Abū Murāwiḥ; by al-Nasāʾī (2614), (2615), (2617), (2618), and (2620) via Sulaymān ibn Yasār; by (2619) via Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān; by (2620) and (2621) via Ḥanẓalah ibn ʿAlī; and by (2624) via ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr — all four of them narrating from Ḥamzah ibn ʿAmr al-Aslamī with this chain. ʿUrwah, however, only narrated it from Abū Murāwiḥ.

Ḥamzah ibn ʿAmr al-Aslamī was a noble Companion who died in the year sixty-one, at the age of seventy-one; it is also said, eighty.

It is also found in the "Musnad" of Aḥmad (16037).

The ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah preceding this one corroborates it.