6 - Chapter on the prohibition of wandering (al-siyāḥah)

2486 - Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Tanūkhī Abū al-Jumāhir narrated to us, al-Haytham ibn Ḥumayd narrated to us, al-ʿAlāʾ ibn al-Ḥārith informed me, from al-Qāsim Abī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from Abū Umāmah: that a man said, "O Messenger of Allah, permit me to go wandering (al-siyāḥah)." The Prophet ﷺ said: "The wandering of my ummah is jihad in the path of Allah."(1)

--------------------------------------------

= [The preference is for] hoping for safety from tribulations, and the view of some groups is that seclusion is superior. The majority (al-jumhūr) responded to this hadith by saying that it is interpreted as referring to seclusion during times of tribulation and warfare, or it applies to one from whom people are not safe and whom they cannot bear, or something similar of that nature of specificity. The prophets, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them, and the masses of the Companions, the Successors, the scholars, and the ascetics used to mix with people, thereby attaining the benefits of mixing, such as attending the Friday prayer, congregational prayers, funerals, visiting the sick, circles of remembrance, and other things.

He said: As for al-shiʿb (the mountain pass), it is what lies open between two mountains. The intended meaning is not the pass itself specifically, but rather the intent is solitude and seclusion. The pass is mentioned as an example because it is generally free of people.

Al-ʿAynī said in his "Sharḥ al-Bukhārī," mentioning this statement of al-Nawawī: I say: That which supports the view of the majority is the saying of the Prophet ﷺ: "The believer who mixes with people and endures their harm is greater in reward than the believer who does not mix with people and does not endure their harm." Narrated by al-Tirmidhī in the chapters on asceticism [2675] and Ibn Mājah [4032].

(1) Its chain of transmission is authentic (ṣaḥīḥ). ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Ishbīlī declared it authentic, and Ibn al-Qaṭṭān remained silent about it, and al-ʿIrāqī deemed its chain good in his "Takhrij Aḥādīth al-Iḥyāʾ."

It was also narrated by al-Ṭabarānī in "al-Kabīr" (7760), and in "Musnad al-Shāmiyyīn" (1522), and al-Ḥākim 2/73, and al-Bayhaqī in "al-Sunan al-Kubrā" 9/161, and in "Shuʿab al-Īmān" (4226), and Ibn ʿAsākir in "Tārīkh Dimashq" 53/289, via the route of al-Haytham ibn Ḥumayd, with this chain.

It was also narrated by al-Ṭabarānī in "al-Kabīr" (7706) via the route of ʿUfayr ibn Maʿdān, from Sulaym ibn ʿĀmir, from Abū Umāmah. And ʿUfayr ibn Maʿdān is weak in hadith.

Abū al-Ṭayyib al-ʿAẓīmābādī transmitted from ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAzīzī in his "Sharḥ al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr lil-Suyūṭī" his saying: It is as if this questioner asked the Prophet ﷺ for permission to travel through the land forcibly=