and Sufyān ibn Ḥusayn concurred with him on this point.

They therefore say: the ḥadith is sound in its chain, for its transmitters are trustworthy, and the fact that the two Ṣaḥīḥ compilers did not include it does not imply any weakness—just as there are other authentic reports they left out.

They add: the most one can claim is that the narration stops with Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, yet that is no flaw. A narrator may possess the report as marfūʿ (traced to the Prophet) and then issue a legal ruling in his own words, so it is transmitted from him as mawqūf; thus the two routes do not contradict one another. (1)

Section

They said: This establishes the ḥadith as sound from the standpoint of its chain.

As for the evidentiary force of the text itself:

The Prophet ﷺ informed us that when the two contestants introduce a third party (2) who is assured that he will not be beaten, the agreement amounts to qimār (gambling). Plainly, his mere entry did not make the contract gambling; it was their exempting him from risk that rendered it so. His participation on terms unlike theirs—lacking both hope of gain and fear of loss—carries no legal weight and is as though he had never entered, leaving the contract gambling, for his risk-free presence has no effect (3). If, however, he enters on the same footing of fear and hope as they do, the arrangement is not gambling,