it is—if indeed it is established that al-Muḥāribī did transmit it—borne by a strong isnād (1) in spite of the report’s oddity.
Al-Muḥāribī died in the year 195 AH.
Muḥammad ibn Ḥāzim, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Faḍl, Aḥmad ibn Muʾmin, and Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Sulamī told us:
Al-Ḥusayn ibn Hibat Allāh al-Taghlibī informed us; al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan al-Asadī informed us; ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Maṣṣīṣī informed us; Muḥammad and Aḥmad, the two sons of al-Ḥusayn ibn Sahl ibn al-Ṣayyāḥ in Balad, informed us; they said:
Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad, the imām, informed us; ʿAlī ibn Ḥarb narrated to us; al-Muḥāribī narrated to us, from Layth ibn Saʿd, from Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb, from Marthad ibn ʿAbd Allāh, from ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir, who said:
The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “For me to walk on a live coal or the blade of a sword is dearer than to tread upon a Muslim’s grave; and I do not care whether I relieve myself among the graves or in the middle of the marketplace.” (2)
Its chain of transmission is acceptable.
(1) The chain of transmission is weak. Al-Khatib relates the report in Tarikh Baghdad 1/28–35; 9/311; 10/203; 14/55 through Jarir and through Anas. The first isnad contains ‘Ammar ibn Sayf, who has been discarded; al-Dhahabi states in his Mizan 3/165 that he has "a very denounced hadith," and he cites this very report. The second isnad includes Salih ibn Bayan, likewise discarded; al-Dhahabi again quotes the report under his entry and rules it fabricated. Al-Shawkani, Fawaid al-Majmu‘a, 434–435, notes that al-Khatib, Ibn ‘Adi and al-Tabarani transmitted it from Anas with a raised chain, yet it contains both a discarded and an unknown narrator, so the hadith is munkar; he also labels it "batil" in the Mizan. Ibn ‘Iraq, Tanzih al-Shari‘a 2/52, reports that Ibn al-Jawzi included it in al-Mawdu‘at, tracing it to Jarir ibn ‘Abd Allah through sixteen routes and declaring every one of them unsound; the report is therefore void.
(2) Ibn Majah likewise records it (no. 1567) in the Book of Funerals, chapter “The prohibition of walking over graves and sitting on them,” through Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Samurah, who said: al-Muharibi narrated to us, with this same isnad. Al-Busiri comments in Az-Zawaid, fol. 100/2: “This chain is sahih; all its transmitters are trustworthy. Muhammad ibn Ismail was declared reliable by Abu Hatim, al-Nasa‘i and Ibn Hibban, and the remaining narrators meet the conditions of the two Shaykhs, for al-Bukhari and Muslim relied on each of them. Nor is Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Samurah alone in transmitting it; Abu Ya‘la al-Mawsili has also narrated the report …”