Sahih Muslim 252
صحيح مسلم#252Sahihحَدَّثَنَا قُتَيْبَةُ بْنُ سَعِيدٍ، وَعَمْرٌو النَّاقِدُ، وَزُهَيْرُ بْنُ حَرْبٍ، قَالُوا حَدَّثَنَا سُفْيَانُ، عَنْ أَبِي الزِّنَادِ، عَنِ الأَعْرَجِ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ " لَوْلاَ أَنْ أَشُقَّ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ - وَفِي حَدِيثِ زُهَيْرٍ عَلَى أُمَّتِي - لأَمَرْتُهُمْ بِالسِّوَاكِ عِنْدَ كُلِّ صَلاَةٍ " .
Abu Huraira reported:The Apostle (ﷺ) said: Were it not that I might over-burden the believers-and in the hadith transmitted by Zuhair" people" -I would have ordered them to use toothstick at every time of prayer
Scholarly Authentication
The label above is the grade most of these scholars gave, each scholar counted once — one dissenting opinion no longer speaks for all of them. If any scholar calls a narration fabricated, that verdict is shown instead, whatever the others say. When they judged only its chain of narrators (“Isnaad”), the label says “Sound chain”. Each scholar's own wording:
Every narration in Sahih Muslim is accepted as Sahih (authentic) by the established status of the book.
Sahih Muslim 252 is the standard (Abd al-Baqi) number; this narration is #589 in the MuslimGPT index.
In-book reference: 2:56