The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "There are no days more beloved to Allah than the ten days of Dhul-Hijjah."A man asked, "Messenger of Allah, are these days better than their equivalent spent in jihad for the sake of Allah?"He replied, "They are better than their equivalent spent in jihad for the sake of Allah. And there is no day more beloved to Allah than the Day of Arafah. Allah descends to the lowest heaven and boasts of the people of the earth to the people of heaven, saying, 'Look at My servants, disheveled and dust-covered, exposed to the sun, having come from every distant mountain pass, hoping for My mercy though they have not seen My punishment.' No day is witnessed in which more people are freed from the Fire than the Day of Arafah."
قال رسول الله ﷺ: ما من أيام أفضل عند الله من أيام عشر من ذي الحجة. قال: فقال رجل: يا رسول الله، هن أفضل أم عدتهن جهادا في سبيل الله؟ قال: هن أفضل من عدتهن جهادا في سبيل الله. وما من يوم أفضل عند الله من يوم عرفة؛ ينزل الله إلى السماء الدنيا فيباهي بأهل الأرض أهل السماء فيقول: انظروا إلى عبادي شعثا غبرا ضاحين جاؤوا من كل فج عميق يرجون رحمتي ولم يروا عذابي، فلم ير يوم أكثر عتقا من النار من يوم عرفة.
Ibn Hibban (3853) narrated it via Muhammad bin Marwan Aqeeli, who said, "Hisham, that is Dastawai, told us, from Abu Zubayr, from Jabir," and he related it. Abu Yaala (2090) and Bazzar, in Kashf Astar (1128), both narrated it by this same route. Its isnad is hasan because of Abu Zubayr, who is the Makki, and there is no harm in him when he explicitly states that he heard the hadith directly, and Ibn Hibban's inclusion of it in his Sahih is evidence that Abu Zubayr made this explicit statement in another isnad, as Ibn Hibban stated in the introduction (1/162), saying, "If a report from the narration of a mudallis is sound in my view, in that he made clear that he heard it directly, I do not mind mentioning it without stating that he heard it directly in his report, once its soundness in my view is established through another route."Ibn Khuzayma mentioned it in his Sahih (2840) through another route, from Marzuq, who is Abu Bakr, from Abu Zubayr, from Jabir, in abridged form. He said, "I disclaim responsibility for Marzuq." I say, Marzuq Abu Bakr is the Bahili Basri, the freed slave of Talha bin Abdul-Rahman, and he is not someone whose responsibility should be disclaimed, for Abu Zura deemed him trustworthy, and a group of the leading scholars of hadith narrated from him. Moreover, he was not alone in narrating this hadith, for Hisham Dastawai corroborated him, as already shown in the first isnad. Then again, if Ibn Khuzayma disclaims responsibility for him, could it be that he was not aware of the first isnad, so that he might have included it in his Sahih instead?