Ahmad 6625

Its chain of transmission is sahih. Abu Dawud narrated it (2487, 2:314 of Awn al-Mabud), through Ali bin Ayyash, from Layth bin Saad, with this same chain. Abu Naeem narrated it in Hilyah 5:169, through Abdullah bin Salih, from Layth, with the same wording. Hakim narrated it in Mustadrak 2:73, through Ali bin Ayyash, from Layth bin Saad, and said, "Sahih according to the standard of Muslim, though the two of them did not include it." Dhahabi agreed with him.In Hakim's version, the chain appears as Ibn Abu Shufay from Abdullah bin Amr, omitting "from his father." In my view this is an old error going back to the copyists, or to Hakim himself, or to one of his teachers, because it is likewise found this way in the manuscript copy I have of Dhahabi's abridgment of Mustadrak (p. 206), even though Hakim narrated it through Muhammad bin Musaffa from Ali bin Ayyash, and Muhammad bin Musaffa is the very teacher through whom Abu Dawud narrated it from Ali bin Ayyash. In Abu Dawud's version it is correctly given as, from Ibn Shufay, from Shufay, from Abdullah bin Amr.Al-Qaflah, with a fatha on the qaf. Ibn Athir said, "It is the noun of a single instance from quful (returning), meaning that the reward of the one engaged in jihad, when he returns home to his family after his military expedition, is like the reward he earns when setting out for jihad. This is because in his returning there is rest for the soul, a renewal of strength for going out again, and a safeguarding of his family through his coming back to them." He and Khattabi both discussed this at length in Maalim (1277 of Tahzib Sunan), in their commentary on it.