Its chain of transmission is composed entirely of trustworthy narrators save for ʿAmr ibn Muslim. Ibn Ḥajar lists him in Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb, mentioning that Abū Muʿāwiyah al-Ḍarīr and Abū ʿAlqamah al-Farawī narrated from him, yet he cites neither criticism nor endorsement regarding him.
- The third corroborating report comes from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, who said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ stopped in the market-places with Bilāl at his side. He sat on the rim of a well, let his legs dangle into it, and uncovered his thighs. Abū Bakr arrived asking permission to enter, so the Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Bilāl, admit him and give him the glad tidings of Paradise….’” The rest of the narration follows the same pattern, stating that when each of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān arrived, the Prophet ﷺ likewise dangled his legs in the well and exposed his thighs.
Al-Ṭabarānī related this report in al-Awsat. As al-Haythamī notes in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid, its transmitters are reliable; elsewhere he adds, “Its narrators are the men of the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections, except for al-Ṭabarānī’s shaykh ʿAlī ibn Saʿīd, and he is sound in ḥadith.”
A fourth supporting narration comes from Ibn ʿAbbās, recorded by al-Ṭabarānī and al-Bazzār, but their chain includes al-Naḍr Abū ʿAmr, who has been deemed unreliable, as al-Haythamī points out.
Anas also reported: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ marched to Khaybar. We performed the dawn prayer there while it was still dark. The Prophet of Allah ﷺ mounted, Abū Ṭalḥah mounted, and I was riding behind Abū Ṭalḥah. Allah’s Messenger ﷺ urged his mount through an alley of Khaybar while my knee was touching the thigh of Allah’s Messenger ﷺ. Then he lifted his lower garment from his thigh so that I could see the whiteness of the Prophet’s thigh….” — and the ḥadith continues.
This narration was recorded by al-Bukhārī; it is likewise found with Ibn Ḥazzām, Muslim, al-Bayhaqī, and Aḥmad.