(When you ask Allāh, ask Him for al-Firdaws, for it is the center of Paradise. A man among you might say to his shepherd: 'Stay in the center of the valley, for it is the most fertile and lush.') Narrated by al-Bukhārī in "al-Tārīkh" (2/2/146), Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī in "al-Maʿrifah wa-al-Tārīkh" (2/348) - with the isnād context belonging to him -, al-Bazzār in "Musnad" (4/191/3512 - "Kashf al-Astār"), and al-Ṭabarānī in "al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr" (18/254/634), all of them through the route of Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Zibriq who said: ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith ibn al-Ḍaḥḥāk narrated to me, who said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sālim narrated to me from al-Zubaydī, who said: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī ʿAwf narrated to them that Suwayd ibn Jubalah narrated to them that ʿIrbaḍ ibn Sāriyah narrated to them, referring it back to the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) that he said: ... and he mentioned it. I say: This isnād has weakness; this Ibn Zibriq, al-Ḥāfiẓ said in "al-Taqrīb": "Truthful but makes many mistakes." And his teacher Ibn al-Ḍaḥḥāk, al-Ḥāfiẓ said: "Acceptable." And Suwayd ibn Jubalah is truthful in my opinion, mentioned by Ibn Ḥibbān in "al-Thiqāt" (4/325), and four trustworthy narrators reported from him. The rest of the men in the isnād are well-known trustworthy narrators. The ḥadīth has two supporting narrations from Abū Hurayrah and ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit, more complete than this, and their documentation has preceded under numbers (921 and 922). (Note): Al-Haythamī contradicted himself, mentioning the ḥadīth in two places, saying in the first of them (10/171):