Hadeeth about market for images in Paradise weak

26-6-2017 | IslamWeb

Question:

Assalaamu alaykum. Is the following hadith authentic?
‘Ali narrated that the Messenger of Allaah, sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam, said, "Indeed, in Paradise, there is a market in which there is no buying nor selling, except for images of men and women. So whenever a man desires an image, he enters it." [Tirmidhi 2550]

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. 

The hadeeth which you referred to in the question was reported by Ahmad and At-Tirmithi and relates that ‘Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, narrated that the Prophet said, “Indeed, there is a market in Paradise in which there is no buying nor selling, except for images of men and women. So whenever a man desires an image, he enters it." At-Tirmithi said, “This is a Ghareeb (strange) hadeeth.”

The scholars, such as Al-Albaani and Shu’ayb al-Arnaa’oot,  classified the chain of narrators of this hadeeth as weak. Prior to them, Ibn al-Jawzi classified it as weak in Al-Mawdhoo’aat (fabricated ahaadeeth) and then said, “This hadeeth is not authentic; the narrator who is accused in it is ‘Abdur-Rahmaan ibn Is-haaq, who is Abu Shaybah al-Waasiti. Ahmad said, ‘He is nothing. He is rejected.’ Yahya said, ‘He is discarded.’”

This hadeeth was also reported by At-Tabaraani, and Al-Haythami said in Al-Majma’, “At-Tabaraani reported it in Al-Awsat from Muhammad ibn Katheer, from Jaabir Al-Ju’fi, and both of them are very weak (narrators).”

Allah knows best.