The most reliable of them is ʿUbayd Allah; the scholars unanimously accept his narrations as admissible proof. As for ʿAbd Allah and ʿĀṣim, they are both weak, and the criticism directed at ʿAbd Allah is well known.

As for his brother ʿĀṣim, the transmitter of this very ḥadith (1): al-Bukhārī said, “His ḥadith is munkar.” Ibn ʿAdī said, “They declared him weak.” Imām Aḥmad, in the report of his son Ṣāliḥ, called him “weak,” and in another statement said, “He is good for nothing.” (2) Abū Ḥātim likewise deemed him weak. Hārūn ibn Mūsā al-Farwī said, “He is not strong.” Al-Jawzajānī remarked, “His ḥadith is to be judged weak.” Al-Nasāʾī said, “He is not trustworthy,” and on another occasion, “Abandoned.” Al-Tirmidhī observed, “In my view he is not a ḥāfiẓ.”

Ibn ʿAdī (3) also wrote, “They declared him weak,” after which he listed many of his narrations, this ḥadith being one of them.

Ibn Ḥibbān, however, was inconsistent regarding him: he included his reports in his Ṣaḥīḥ, yet in his book al-Duʿafāʾ (4) he wrote, “He is extremely munkar in ḥadith; he relates from reliable transmitters what bears no resemblance to the reports of the trustworthy. His narrations may not be cited as evidence except when they coincide with those of reliable narrators.”

Someone whose standing among the ḥadith specialists is such cannot be used as proof.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Maqdisī said, “With regard to this ʿĀṣim ibn ʿUmar, the critics have spoken …”