This ḥadith is fine in its wording; were it not for a degree of softness in the transmitter Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Maṣṣīṣī, it would have been judged authentic.
Al-Tirmidhī recorded it—and graded it ḥasan—through al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ from Ibn Kathīr.
The ḥadith master al-Ḍiyāʾ (1) likewise included it in al-Mukhtārah, on the authority of this al-Asadī.
49 – ʿIkrimah ibn ʿAmmār, Abū ʿAmmār al-ʿIjlī (M, 4)
The ḥāfiẓ, the imām, Abū ʿAmmār al-ʿIjlī—originally of Basra and later of al-Yamāmah—was one of the carriers of proof and vessels of truth.
He narrated from: ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ, Abū Kathīr al-Suḥaymī, al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, Abū Zumayl Simāk ibn al-Walīd, Ḍamḍam ibn Jaws, Ṭāwūs ibn Kaysān, Makḥūl, Nāfiʿ, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, Abū Najāshī ʿAṭāʾ ibn Ṣuhayb, and others.
He ranks alongside Hishām ibn Ḥassān and those of similar standing, even though he met a Companion—al-Hirmās ibn Ziyād (2)—and is therefore counted among the junior Successors.
= (3666). The chain transmitted by Ahmad is sound. It is also reported by Ibn Majah, no. 100, through Abu Juhaifah, and by al-Tabarani from Jabir in his al-Awsat, as cited in Majmaʿ, 9/153.
(1) He is the imam and hadith master of Syria, the Shaykh of the Sunnah, Diyaʾ al-Din Abu ʿAbd Allah Muhammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahid al-Saʿdi al-Hanbali (d. 643 AH). His work al-Mukhtara, in which he selected only sound hadiths, remained unfinished; the autograph is still unpublished, with several parts preserved in the Zahiriyya Library, Damascus. Ibn Kathir states in al-Baʿith al-Hathith that some of our senior hadith scholars preferred it to al-Hakim’s Mustadrak. Al-Suyuti quotes al-Zarkashi in al-Laʾaliʾ as saying that Diyaʾ al-Din’s authentication surpasses that of al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Hibban.
• Biographical sources: Ibn Saʿd, Tabaqat, 5/555; Khalifa, Tabaqat, 290 and Tarikh, 429; al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh al-Kabir, 7/50, and al-Tarikh al-Saghir, 2/139; al-Bukhari, al-Duʿafaʾ, no. 334; Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil, 7/10; al-Khatib, Tarikh Baghdad, 12/257; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-Kamal, ms. 951; al-Dhahabi, Tadhhib al-Tahdhib, ms. 3/49, Tarikh al-Islam, 6/250-251, Mizaan al-Iʿtidal, 3/90-93, and al-ʿIbar, 1/232; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, 7/261-263; Ibn Hajar, Tabaqat al-Mudallisin, 14; al-Khazraji, Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal, 270; Ibn ʿImad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, 1/246.
(2) His hadith will be discussed on page 139.