Yet that unnamed shaykh is unknown; no name for him is given. For this reason I classed the report as weak in my Silsilat al-Ḍaʿīfah, no. 2430. Ibn al-Qayyim also alluded to it in Ighāthat al-Lahfān, 1/248, remarking: “It is sound as a statement of Ibn Masʿūd.” Still, it carries the ruling of being traced back to the Prophet, for a remark of this nature could not arise from mere personal opinion, as al-Ālūsī explained in Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 11/68.

Second: al-Shaʿbī said,
“Singing makes hypocrisy grow in the heart just as water makes crops grow, whereas remembrance makes faith grow in the heart just as water makes crops grow.”
Ibn Naṣr recorded it in Qadar al-Ṣalāh, pp. 151/2–152/1, through the route of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Dakkīn, from Firās ibn Yaḥyā (the original mistakenly has “ibn ʿAbd Allāh”).
I say: this chain is ḥasan. Its transmitters are trustworthy and are the men relied upon by the two Shaykhs, except for ʿAbd Allāh ibn Dakkīn—Abū ʿUmar al-Kūfī al-Baghdādī—about whom there is disagreement. Al-Dhahabī writes in al-Mughnī: “A contemporary of Shuʿbah; some authorities declared him reliable, while Abū Zurʿah judged him weak.” Al-Ḥāfiẓ adds in al-Taqrīb: “Truthful, but he makes mistakes.”