He says: “3. It is reported from Iyas ibn Muʿāwiyah al-Muzanī (may Allah have mercy on him) that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘Nightfall requires at least one unit of prayer, even if it is only the time it takes to milk a goat; and whatever is performed after the ʿIshāʾ prayer counts as part of the night.’ Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it, and its transmitters are trustworthy except for Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq.”

I remark: The compiler took this from al-Targhīb, and his wording already hints that the report is defective, for Ibn Isḥāq was a mudallis, and it appears that he transmitted it with an unqualified ʿanʿanah; had he explicitly said “he related to us,” that particular flaw would disappear.

Yet the ḥadīth contains another defect: it is mursal, because Iyas ibn Muʿāwiyah was not a Companion but one of the younger Successors—he died in 122 AH. In this form, then, the ḥadīth is weak, and—taken at face value—it would even suggest that a minimal amount of night prayer is obligatory!

For urging people to observe the night prayer, the forthcoming ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās suffices; al-Mundhirī and al-Haythamī both judged it sound.

My suspicion was confirmed when I found the report in al-Ṭabarānī’s al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr 1/271/787 through the route of Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq with the same ʿanʿanah. Allah alone grants success.

This volume was published through the diligence and verification of our brother Shaykh Ḥamdī al-Salafī—may Allah reward him with goodness.

As for his other narration, number 5, both of them declared it weak. Aḥmad also transmitted it in al-Zuhd, p. 16, with a weak chain, as I have shown in al-Ḍaʿīfa 3912, where I also provided the strong ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās as related by Abū Yaʿlā.