I add: One symptom of the instability in this report is that on one occasion he narrated it from Yaḥyā through Hilāl, while on another he said: “from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah.” For that very reason al-Mundhirī, after citing the Abū Hurayrah version as related by al-Ṭabarānī, remarked in al-Targhīb, “Its chain is flimsy.”

The second defect is the narrator Hilāl ibn ʿIyāḍ. Al-Mundhirī wrote, “He is counted among the unknowns.” Al-Dhahabī said, “He is not known,” and al-Ḥāfiẓ stated in al-Taqrīb, “Unidentified.”

Accordingly, I listed the ḥadith in my work Ḍaʿīf Sunan Abī Dāwūd, no. 3, and discussed it there at length.

Al-Shawkānī, however, in al-Sayl 1/68, failed to notice the first defect and answered the second by saying that Hilāl is mentioned by Ibn Ḥibbān in al-Thiqat. Yet he seems to have overlooked the observations of al-Ḥāfiẓ and others about Ibn Ḥibbān’s leniency in declaring narrators trustworthy, as well as the explicit verdict of anonymity we have just quoted regarding Hilāl—who is also called ʿIyāḍ ibn Hilāl. Indeed, Ibn Ḥibbān lists him in al-Thiqat 5/265 without recording any transmitter from him other than Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr.

Once the weakness of the ḥadith is established, it is impermissible to derive a ruling from it, or even to cite it, unless its weakness is made clear. What I understand from the text is a prohibition on two people conversing while both have their nakedness exposed; as for speech without exposure, I do not see—were the report sound—that it indicates any prohibition. Let this be considered.

His statement in note 5, “This alternative is sounder than the previous one,”—I say: That would indeed be so were it not that nothing has appeared in the Prophet’s ﷺ practice contradicting his own words by actually doing it.