spoke ill of him.
He went on to say, “Here is Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, who has praised him; the word that counts is what Aḥmad said, not what anyone else may say.
“As for the ḥadith, ‘Religion is sincere counsel,’ which al-Nasāʾī rejected, it was also transmitted by Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā from Ibn Wahb, and Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn ʿAthmah likewise narrated it from Mālik. (1)
“Furthermore, Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ is among the eminent scholars. I have seen the compilation of Abū Mūsā al-Zamīn, and in most of what he gathered of al-Zuhrī’s reports he writes:
‘Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ wrote to me: “ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us, from Maʿmar, from al-Zuhrī….” Were it not that I had stipulated in this book of mine that I would mention everyone about whom any critic has spoken, I would have considered Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ too distinguished to be mentioned.’ (2)
Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī reported from Muslimah ibn al-Qāsim:
‘People are unanimously agreed on the reliability of Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ because of his knowledge, piety, and virtue. Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and others wrote from him and deemed him trustworthy, and the reason al-Nasāʾī declared him weak was that Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ would not…’
(1) Ahmad (Musnad, 2:297) and al-Tirmidhi (no. 1926) also transmit this report through the chain Ibn Ujlan – al-Qaqa‘ ibn Hakim – Abu Salih – Abu Hurayra; al-Tirmidhi classifies it as hasan (fair).
Al-Nasa’i (7:157, Book of the Bay‘a, chapter “Sincere counsel to the Imam”) records it via Isma‘il ibn Ja‘far from Ibn Ujlan, from al-Qaqa‘ ibn Hakim, and—through Sumay and ‘Ubayd Allah ibn Maqsam—from Abu Salih, from Abu Hurayra.
Ahmad (4:102), Muslim (no. 55), and al-Nasa’i (7:156–157) likewise report it, all through Sufyan – Suhayl ibn Abi Salih – ‘Ata’ ibn Yazid al-Laythi – Tamim al-Dari.
Ibn Rajab notes in Jami‘ al-‘Ulum wa-l-Hikam, p. 73, that some scholars deem both lines of transmission sound, whereas others accept only the Tamim version and regard the Abu Hurayra chain as defective. The hadith is also transmitted from Ibn ‘Umar, Thawban, Ibn ‘Abbas, and others.
My own observation: the Ibn ‘Umar version appears in al-Darimi (2:311) with a strong chain; the Thawban version in al-Tabarani’s al-Awsat (cited in al-Haythami, Majma‘, 1:87) is weak; the Ibn ‘Abbas version in Ahmad (1:315) is likewise weak, and al-Haythami adds that it is also reported by al-Bazzar and al-Tabarani.
(2) Tabaqat al-Shafi‘iyya, al-Subki, 2:8.