Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq informed us; al-Fath informed us; al-Urmawī, al-Ṭarāʾifī, and Ibn al-Dāyah informed us, saying:

Muḥammad ibn al-Muslimah informed us; Abū’l-Faḍl al-Zuhrī informed us; Jaʿfar al-Firyābī narrated to us; ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī narrated to us; Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad ibn Qays narrated to us; al-ʿAlāʾ narrated from his father, from Abū Hurayrah, who said:

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “The sign of the hypocrite is three: when he speaks he lies, when he makes a promise he breaks it, and when he is entrusted he betrays the trust.”

This ḥadith is singular (gharīb), solitary (fard); no one transmitted it from al-ʿAlāʾ except Abū Zukayr. Although Muslim included it (1) through his transmission, it has reached me with a higher substitute chain, and that belongs to the kind of material Muslim placed among the supporting narrations (tawābiʿ), not the principal isnāds.

Abū Zukayr died before 200 AH, or thereabouts.

Abū Yaʿlā al-Khalīlī said, regarding the report “Eat fresh dates together with dried dates …”: “This narration is solitary and anomalous. Abū Zukayr is a righteous shaykh; we neither declare it authentic nor do we weaken it.”

I say: Rather, we judge it to be weak, and such a report to be objectionable—and Allah knows best.