I mentioned fasting to the Prophet ﷺ, and he said, "Fast one day out of every ten, and you will have the reward of nine."I said, "I am capable of more than that."He said, "Then fast one day out of every nine, and you will have the reward of eight."I said, "I am capable of more than that."He said, "Fast one day out of every eight, and you will have the reward of those seven."I said, "I am capable of more than that."He kept going until he said, "Fast one day and break your fast the next."
حدثنا عارم حدثنا معتمر عن أبيه حدثنا أبو العلاء عن مطرف عن ابن أبي ربيعة
ذكرت للنبي ﷺ الصوم فقال صم من كل عشرة أيام يوما ولك أجر التسعة قال فقلت إني أقوى من ذلك قال فصم من كل تسعة أيام يوما ولك أجر الثمانية قال فقلت إني أقوى من ذلك قال صم من كل ثمانية أيام يوما ولك أجر تلك السبعة قال قلت إني أقوى من ذلك قال فلم يزل حتى قال صم يوما وأفطر يوما
Its isnad is sahih, though there is an error in it, as will become clear, Allah willing. It has already been given at somewhat greater length at 6877, narrated by Jareeri from Abu Ala, who is Yazid bin Abdullah bin Shikhir, from his brother Mutarrif bin Abdullah, from Abdullah bin Amr. We mentioned there that Nasai narrated it in abridged form through this same route, and that he added a man to the isnad, namely Ibn Abu Rabia mentioned in this isnad. There we attributed the error in this addition to Nasai or to one of the shaykhs in the isnad.Now here Ahmad narrates it, with this same man added to the isnad, from Arim, from Mutamir bin Sulayman, from his father. Nasai's narration is in the Sunan 1:225, from Muhammad bin Abdul-Ala, from Mutamir, from his father. So the error is not from Nasai, nor from his shaykh Muhammad bin Abdul-Ala, rather the error is to be attributed to Mutamir bin Sulayman, or to his father Sulayman bin Tarkhan Taymi. What I now consider more likely is that it comes from Mutamir bin Sulayman, for his father Sulayman Taymi was a reliable hafiz and an authority, whom Sufyan Thawri counted as one of the three hafiz of Basra, and Ibn Hibban said he was among the devout and righteous people of Basra, trustworthy in reliability, precision, memory, and sunnah. As for Mutamir, despite his trustworthiness and retentiveness, he was not at the level of his father in this regard. Ibn Kharrash said, "He is trustworthy but errs from his memory, and when he narrates from his book, he is trustworthy." Yahya Qattan said, "If Mutamir narrates to you, check it carefully, for he has poor memory."We have restored the addition concerning the command to fast eight of the nine days from L and M. It appears that it was dropped from M by the oversight of a copyist or printer.This hadith is one of the narrations of the longer hadith about Abdullah bin Amr's diligence in worship, which has already appeared at 6477. There we referred to many of its narrations in the Musnad, though we missed some, and this is one we failed to mention there.