The Messenger of Allah ﷺ led us in the dawn prayer one day and asked, "Is so-and-so present?"They said, "No."He asked, "Is so-and-so present?"They said, "No."He said, "These two prayers are the heaviest of prayers upon the hypocrites. If you only knew what they contain, you would come to them even if you had to crawl on your knees. The first row is like the row of the angels, and if you knew its merit, you would race to it. A man's prayer with another man is purer than his prayer alone, and his prayer with two men is purer than his prayer with one. The greater the number, the more beloved it is to Allah the Exalted."
صلى بنا رسول الله ﷺ يوما الصبح فقال: أشاهد فلان؟ قالوا: لا، قال: أشاهد فلان؟ قالوا: لا، قال: إن هاتين الصلاتين أثقل الصلوات على المنافقين، ولو تعلمون ما فيهما لأتيتموها ولو حبوا على الركب، وإن الصف الأول على مثل صف الملائكة، ولو علمتم ما فضيلته لابتدرتموه، وإن صلاة الرجل مع الرجل أزكى من صلاته وحده، وصلاته مع الرجلين أزكى من صلاته مع الرجل، وما كثر فهو أحب إلى الله تعالى.
Reported by Abu Dawud (554) from Hafs bin Umar, and Nasai (844) from Khalid bin Harith, both from Shubah, from Abu Ishaq, from Abdullah bin Abu Basir, from Ubayy bin Kaab. This is how it appears in Abu Dawud's chain, while in Nasai's chain it reads, from Shubah, from Abu Ishaq, that he informed them from Abdullah bin Abu Basir, from his father, Shubah said, and Abu Ishaq said, I heard it from him and from his father, he said, I heard Ubayy bin Kaab, and he mentioned it.Abdullah bin Abu Basir Abdi was graded reliable by Ajli and Ibn Hibban. As for his father, Abu Basir, no one graded him reliable except Ibn Hibban, and for this reason Hafiz placed him at the level of "maqbul" (acceptable), meaning if corroborated. However, the isnad is established even without his intermediary link, for it was also reported by Ahmad (21265), Ibn Hibban (2056), and Hakim in Mustadrak (1/247), all of them through a route from Shubah, from Abu Ishaq, from Abdullah bin Abu Basir, from Ubayy bin Kaab, with the same wording.Hakim said, "The imams of hadith, Yahya bin Main, Ali bin Madini, Muhammad bin Yahya Dhuhli, and others, have ruled this hadith to be sahih." Abu Ishaq was a mudallis, but he explicitly stated that he heard it directly, just as Shubah narrated from him, and Shubah is the one who said, "I have spared you the tadlis of three narrators," among them Abu Ishaq, and he also stated explicitly that he heard it directly, as recorded by Ahmad and Ibn Khuzayma. (1476-1477)Ibn Majah (790) reported it in abbreviated form from Muhammad bin Muamar, who said, Abu Bakr Hanafi narrated to us, who said, Yunus bin Abu Ishaq narrated to us, from his father, from Abdullah bin Abu Basir, from his father, from Ubayy bin Kaab, who said, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "A man's prayer in congregation exceeds his prayer alone by twenty-four or twenty-five degrees."On this subject there is also the hadith of Qubath bin Ashyam Laythi, reported by Ishaq bin Rahawayh, who said, Isa bin Yunus narrated to us, from Thawr bin Yazid, from Yunus bin Sayf, from Abdul-Rahman bin Ziyad, from Qubath bin Ashyam Laythi, from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who said, "The prayer of two men, one of them leading the other, is more pure in the sight of Allah than the prayer of four men praying successively alone, and the prayer of four men, one of them leading them, is more pure in the sight of Allah than the prayer of eight men praying successively alone, and the prayer of eight men, one of them leading them, is more pure in the sight of Allah than the prayer of a hundred men praying successively alone."This was reported by Tabarani in Kabir (19/36) from Musa bin Harun, from Ishaq bin Rahawayh, with this chain. It was also reported by Bukhari in Tarikh al-Kabir (4/192-193), and Bazzar in Kashf Astar (461), and Hakim (3/625), and Bayhaqi (3/61), all of them through routes from Yunus bin Sayf, with the same wording.Haythami said in Majma al-Zawaid (2142), "Reported by Bazzar and Tabarani in Kabir, and the narrators of Tabarani are graded reliable." I say, it contains Abdul-Rahman bin Ziyad, who is "maqbul", and since I have not found anyone who corroborated him, he is therefore "layyin al-hadith" (of weak hadith), but it is Haythami's practice to say of such a narrator that his narrators are graded reliable, relying on Ibn Hibban's grading of reliability.