Its chain of transmission is sound: all of its transmitters are the narrators employed by the two Imams al-Bukhārī and Muslim, except for ʿUmar ibn al-Ḥārith, and he too is reliable, as stated in al-Taqrīb. Al-Haythamī says in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (4/3): “It was reported by Aḥmad, al-Bazzār with a similar wording, and by al-Ṭabarānī in both al-Kabīr and al-Awsaṭ; the narrators in Aḥmad’s version are trustworthy and firmly established.”

2 - Ibn Isḥāq said: “Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb related to me from Mirthad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Yaznī, from Abū Baṣrah al-Ghifārī, who said: ‘I met Abū Hurayrah…,’” and he cited the ḥadīth. Aḥmad recorded it (6/397), and its isnād is sound (ḥasan).

3 - Yazīd ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Hād, from Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥārith al-Taymī, from Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, from Abū Hurayrah, who said, “I set out for Mount Ṭūr”—I (the author) say: he mentioned a long report and then added—“whereupon I met Buṣrah ibn Abī Buṣrah al-Ghifārī. He asked, ‘From where have you come?’ I replied, ‘From Mount Ṭūr.’ He said, ‘Had I met you before you set out, you would not have gone, for I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, “Mounts are only readied for travel to three mosques…,”’” and he quoted the same ḥadīth.

Mālik recorded it (1/131-132), as did al-Nasāʾī (1/210), al-Tirmidhī (2/362-363), and Aḥmad (6/7) through him. Al-Tirmidhī remarked, “A ḥadīth that is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.”

I say: It meets the criteria of the two Shaykhs, yet a few of its transmitters erred in two specific places.