Ḥātim al-Rāzī—whose name is Muḥammad ibn Idrīs, the father of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the author of al-Jarḥ wa’l-Taʿdīl—is not the one who brought out this ḥadith. The intended narrator is Abū Ḥātim Ibn Ḥibbān al-Bustī. The author ought therefore to have qualified the name so as to remove any ambiguity, all the more because he copied this citation from Ibn al-Qayyim’s Zād al-Maʿād, and Ibn al-Qayyim had already done just that when he wrote:
“Abū Ḥātim has recorded in his Ṣaḥīḥ ….”
By abbreviating the phrase to “in his Ṣaḥīḥ,” the present author created the confusion.

Second: The narration is also reported by transmitters of a higher level and wider renown than Ibn Ḥibbān, namely al-Nasāʾī—in the Sunan 1/197–198 and in al-Yawm wa’l-Laylah 137—and by Ibn Khuzaymah in his Ṣaḥīḥ 745, through the chain of Ibn Wahb: “Ḥafṣ ibn Maysarah informed me, from Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Marwān, from his father, from Kaʿb, that Ṣuhayb related it to him as a marfūʿ report.”

Third: Ibn Ḥibbān likewise recorded it, 541 – Mawārid, via Ibn Abī al-Sarī, who said: “It was read to Ḥafṣ ibn Maysarah while I was listening: Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah narrated to me …” and so on.

I say: Ibn Abī al-Sarī—his name is Muḥammad ibn al-Mutawakkil—is weak because of his frequent mistakes, whereas Ibn Wahb, i.e. ʿAbdullāh, is the trustworthy, ḥāfiẓ Imām. Citing the ḥadith through those who transmitted it by way of Ibn Wahb would therefore have been preferable to attributing it to Ibn Ḥibbān, as is plain to see. This is one of the unfortunate consequences of blind imitation and of neglecting the primary sources! For that reason the annotator of Zād al-Maʿād 1/302 declared the ḥadith defective on account of the aforementioned Ibn Abī al-Sarī, yet he failed to notice the sound route that is free from this defect and preserved by the earlier imāms. Had he examined the matter more closely, he would have realized that the flaw actually lies with the successor to the Companion in the chain, Abū Marwān—the father of ʿAṭāʾ. Al-Nasāʾī said: “He is unknown.” Al-Dhahabī adopted that verdict in al-Mīzān and in al-Ḍuʿafāʾ, but