Question:
She asks about a hadith which says that when a Muslim comforts his brother who is in distress, Allahﷻ will clothe him with a green garment that others will envy. This narration is reported from Anas and appears in the book Shu‘ab al-Iman. She wants to know whether this hadith is authentic.
Answer:
Indeed, this narration is mentioned in Shu‘ab al-Iman and also appears in Tarikh Dimashq by Ibn Asakir. The meaning itself—comforting someone who is suffering—is certainly a noble and praiseworthy act. Islam encourages believers to support one another, especially during times of hardship. However, the narration goes further and promises a very specific reward: that Allahﷻ will clothe the person with a green garment envied by others. Whenever a hadith mentions a precise reward like this, scholars must be very careful. Such statements can only be accepted if they are reliably traced back to the Prophetﷺ ﷺ.
When the chain of narration is examined, a weakness appears. The narration passes through a man named Muhammad al-Hashrami, and from him his son Qudamah transmits it. Scholars of hadith criticism investigated this narrator carefully. The famous scholar Adh-Dhahabi explained that he searched through the books that evaluate narrators but could not find reliable information about this individual. In other words, the narrator Muhammad al-Hashrami is unknown.
In the science of hadith, when a narrator is unknown and his reliability cannot be verified, the narration becomes weak. Therefore, even though the idea of comforting someone in distress is undoubtedly good, the specific statement promising a green garment that others will envy cannot confidently be attributed to the Prophetﷺ ﷺ.
So, the conclusion is simple. Encouraging and comforting people during hardship are a virtuous act in Islam. But the particular hadith that mentions the green garment reward is weak and cannot be confirmed as an authentic statement of the Prophetﷺ ﷺ.