(1) I say: This declaration of authenticity is open to serious objection, for in al-Hakim the hadith ultimately depends on Isa ibn Abd al-Ala ibn Abi Furwah, who says he heard Abu Yahya Ubayd Allah al-Taymi relate it from Abu Hurayrah. The same chain is found in Abu Dawud 1/180, Ibn Majah 1/394, and al-Bayhaqi 3/210. The isnad is weak and obscure: Isa is unknown (majhul), as Ibn Hajar notes in al-Taqrib; his shaykh Abu Yahya—Ubayd Allah ibn Abd Allah ibn Muhibb—is likewise of unknown status. Al-Dhahabi remarks in Mukhtasar Sunan al-Bayhaqi 1/160, “Ubayd Allah is weak,” and in his Mizan he adds concerning the narrator who transmits from him, “He is virtually unknown; this hadith is munkar.” Accordingly, al-Dhahabi’s agreement with al-Hakim in Talkhis al-Mustadrak that the report is sahih belongs to the many mistakes we hope will be excused. Ibn Hajar therefore states categorically in Talkhis al-Habir (p. 144) and in Bulugh al-Maram 2/99 that “its chain is weak.” Al-Nawawi’s statement in al-Majmu 5/5 that “its isnad is good” is untenable; he seems to have relied on Abu Dawud’s silence, yet such silence proves nothing, for Abu Dawud often withholds comment on reports whose weakness is evident, as the manuals of hadith methodology explain and as I have shown in my book Sahih Sunan Abi Dawud.