I was sitting with Abu Darda in the mosque of Damascus when a man came to him and said, "Abu Darda, I have come to you from the city of the Messenger because of a hadith that has reached me which you narrate from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ."Abu Darda asked, "Have you not come for some need? Have you not come for trade? Have you come for nothing other than this hadith?"The man replied, "Yes."Abu Darda said, "I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, 'Whoever travels a path seeking knowledge upon it, Allah will make him travel a path among the paths of Paradise. The angels lower their wings out of pleasure for the seeker of knowledge. The scholar is asked for forgiveness by all who are in the heavens and all who are in the earth, even the fish in the water. The superiority of the scholar over the worshipper is like the superiority of the moon on the night of the full moon over the rest of the stars. The scholars are the heirs of the prophets. The prophets did not leave behind dinars or dirhams as inheritance, they only left behind knowledge, so whoever takes it has taken an abundant share.'"
كنت جالسا مع أبي الدرداء في مسجد دمشق، فأتاه رجل فقال: يا أبا الدرداء، إني أتيتك من مدينة الرسول في حديث بلغني أنك تحدثه عن رسول الله ﷺ، فقال أبو الدرداء: أما جئت لحاجة، أما جئت لتجارة، أما جئت إلا لهذا الحديث؟ قال: نعم. قال: فإني سمعت رسول الله ﷺ يقول: من سلك طريقا يطلب فيه علما سلك الله به طريقا من طرق الجنة، والملائكة تضع أجحتها رضا لطالب العلم، وإن العالم يستغفر له من في السموات ومن في الأرض، والحيتان في الماء، وفضل العالم على العابد كفضل القمر ليلة البدر على سائر الكواكب، إن العلماء ورثة الأنبياء، إن الأنبياء لم يورثوا دينارا ولا درهما، وأورثوا العلم، فمن أخذه أخذ بحظ وافر.
Abu Dawud (3641) and Ibn Majah (223) both narrated it through the route of Abdullah bin Dawud Khuraybi, who said, I heard Asim bin Raja bin Haywa, from Dawud bin Jamil, from Kathir bin Qays, and he mentioned the hadith. Ibn Hibban graded it sahih (88) and narrated it through this same route.I say, in it there is Dawud bin Jamil, also said to be Walid, whom Ibn Hibban mentioned in Thiqat, but Daraqutni said, "Unknown." And he said on another occasion, "He and those above him up to Abu Darda are daif." Likewise, in it there is Kathir bin Qays, also said to be Qays bin Kathir, a Syrian, whom Ibn Hibban also mentioned in Thiqat, but Daraqutni graded him daif.As for what Imam Ahmad (21715) and Tirmidhi (2682) narrated, both from the hadith of Muhammad bin Yazid Wasiti, who said, Asim bin Raja bin Haywa narrated to us, from Qays bin Kathir, who said, a man came from Madinah to Abu Darda while he was in Damascus, and he said (then he mentioned the hadith), in it there is a break in the chain, as Tirmidhi said. This is his wording, "We do not know this hadith except from the hadith of Asim bin Raja bin Haywa, from Dawud bin Jamil, from Kathir bin Qays, from Abu Darda, from the Prophet ﷺ. And this is more sahih than the hadith of Mahmud bin Khidash." End of quote.As for Tirmidhi's statement, "We do not know this hadith except from the hadith of Asim bin Raja bin Haywa," this is according to what he was aware of, otherwise the hadith has come through another route. Abu Dawud (3642) narrated it from Muhammad bin Wazir Dimashqi, who said, Walid narrated to us, who said, I met Shabib bin Shayba, and he narrated it to me from Uthman bin Abu Sawda, from Abu Darda, meaning from the Prophet ﷺ, with the same meaning. In its chain there is Shabib bin Shayba, who is unknown.But Hafiz said in Tahdheeb (4/308), in the biography of Shabib bin Shayba, "Amr bin Uthman said, from Walid, from Shuayb bin Razeeq, from Uthman, meaning Ibn Abu Sawda, and this is closer to being correct."I say, if so, then the chain of this hadith would be hasan, because Shuayb bin Razeeq is Abu Shayba Shami, whom Ibn Hibban mentioned in Thiqat (8/308), and in Taqrib it says, "Truthful, makes mistakes." Perhaps he did not make a mistake in this hadith, given the corroborating narrations mentioned earlier, and it has other routes which Hafiz bin Abdul-Barr gathered in Jami Bayan Ilm (1/160–170).Bukhari mentioned in his Sahih, in the Book of Knowledge, chapter on knowledge before speech and action, "Indeed the scholars are the heirs of the prophets. They inherited knowledge, so whoever takes it has taken an abundant share, and whoever travels a path seeking knowledge thereby, Allah makes easy for him a path to Paradise."Hafiz said in Fath al-Bari (1/160), "This is a fragment of a hadith narrated by Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Ibn Hibban, and Hakim, who graded it sahih, from the hadith of Abu Darda. Hamza Kinani graded it hasan, while others graded it daif due to inconsistency in its chain, but it has supporting narrations that strengthen it. The author (Bukhari) did not explicitly state that it was a hadith, so for this reason it is not counted among his suspended narrations, but his citing it in the chapter heading suggests that it has a basis. Its corroboration in the Quran is "Then We caused to inherit the Book those We have chosen of Our servants" [Fatir 35:32]." End of quote.