“…Indeed, these fragrant sprigs of sweet basil are from the vegetation of Paradise. Therefore, if one of you is offered any of it, let him not turn it away.”
This is a munkar (denounced) hadith, and al-Qushayrī is unsound (1).
His namesake: the Imām and ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Balkhī, a travelling scholar (2).
He narrated from Muḥammad ibn al-Muʿafā al-Ṣaydāwī and others of his rank, and al-Ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Jārūdī transmitted from him.
The first—meaning Ibn al-Saqqāʾ—died in 372 AH at Isfarāyin, may Allah the Exalted have mercy on him.
252 – Ibn al-Saqqāʾ ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad al-Wāsiṭī *
The Imām, ḥāfiẓ, trustworthy and widely-traveled scholar, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Wāsiṭī, known as Ibn al-Saqqāʾ, the hadith scholar of Wāsiṭ.
He heard hadiths from: Abū Khalīfah al-Faḍl ibn al-Ḥubāb, Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī, ʿAbdān al-Ahwāzī, Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Zuhayr al-Tustarī, Abū ʿImrān Mūsā ibn Sahl al-Jawniyy, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Mukrim, Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad al-Wāsiṭī, and their contemporaries.