Sunan Ibn Majah 223

Unreviewed translation. All hadiths in this collection are available in five languages. Titles and introductions may remain in Arabic.

Naṣr ibn ʿAlī al-Jahḍamī narrated to us: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Dāwūd narrated to us, from ʿĀṣim ibn Rajāʾ ibn Ḥaywah, from Dāwūd ibn Jamīl, from Kathīr ibn Qays, who said: I was sitting with Abū al-Dardāʾ in the mosque of Damascus when a man came to him and said, “Abū al-Dardāʾ, I have come to you from Medina, the city of the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, for a report that has reached me which you narrate from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.” He asked, “Did trade bring you here?” He said, “No.” He asked, “Did anything else bring you here?” He said, “No.” He said: I heard the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, say: “Whoever follows a path seeking knowledge on it, God will make easy for him a path to Paradise. The angels lower their wings in approval of the seeker of knowledge. Everyone in the heavens and the earth seeks forgiveness for the seeker of knowledge, even the fish in the water. The superiority of a scholar over a devoted worshipper is like the superiority of the moon over all the other stars. The scholars are the heirs of the Prophets. The Prophets did not leave behind a dinar or a dirham; they left knowledge. Whoever takes it has taken an abundant share.”