The isnād is sound, and al-Tirmidhī judges the report to be “ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.” As for al-ʿAlāʾ, Abū Salamah al-Tabudhakkī branded him a liar, and Ibn Ḥibbān expressed contradictory views about him.

(3) Abū Hurayrah is also among the Companions who transmitted this ḥadīth. Abū Dāwūd and Ibn Mājah relate it through the route of al-Aʿmash, from Abū Sufyān, from Jābir, and through Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Abū Hurayrah, with wording nearly identical to Sulayk’s own narration. This chain is sound according to Muslim’s criterion, and the report of al-Aʿmash from Abū Sufyān, from Jābir, has already been cited.

(4) Another transmitter is Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, and the ḥadīth reaches us from him by two routes:

1 – Through Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, from ʿIyāḍ ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Sarḥ:

“Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī entered the mosque on a Friday while Marwān was delivering the sermon. He stood and began to pray, whereupon the guards came to seat him, but he refused until he had completed the two rakʿahs. When he left, we said to him, ‘May Allah have mercy on you! They almost laid hands on you.’ He replied, ‘I would never omit them after something I witnessed from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.’ He then related that a man once came on a Friday in shabby dress while the Prophet ﷺ was preaching; the Prophet ordered him to pray two rakʿahs while he remained on the pulpit.”

Al-Tirmidhī records this version—the wording above is his—as do al-Nasāʾī and Aḥmad through several chains. It is likewise cited by al-Ṭaḥāwī, Ibn Khuzaymah, and Ibn Ḥibbān, as noted in Fatḥ al-Bārī, and a shortened form appears in al-Dārimī and Ibn Mājah.