of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, waited until he had finished and then said, “He is not to lead you in prayer.” Sometime later the man wanted to lead them again, but they prevented him and told him what the Messenger of Allah had said. He then reported the matter to the Messenger of Allah, who replied, “Yes”—and, as I think he added, “You have offended Allah and His Messenger.”

This ḥadith is recorded by Abū Dāwūd—with the additional wording just mentioned—and by Aḥmad through the chain of transmission of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wahb → ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith → Bakr ibn Suwādah al-Judhāmī → Ṣāliḥ ibn Khaywān → Abū Sahla al-Sāʾib ibn Khallād, recounting that a man led a congregation… and so on.

Al-Munḏirī remained silent about it in his Mukhtaṣar, as did Ibn Ḥajar in Fatḥ al-Bārī. His teacher al-ʿIrāqī, in his commentary on al-Taqrīb, said, “Its chain is good.”

Ibn Ḥibbān also included it in his Ṣaḥīḥ, as cited in al-Targhīb.

The transmitters in this isnād are trustworthy—indeed, all are narrators found in Muslim—except for Ṣāliḥ ibn Khaywān (spelled with the dotted kh; some read it with the undotted h). Al-ʿIjlī and Ibn Ḥibbān declared him reliable, even though, as al-Ḏhahabī notes in al-Mīzān, no one other than this Bakr narrated from him. For that reason ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Azdī said, “He cannot be relied upon.” Ibn al-Qaṭṭān faulted him for that judgment and authenticated the ḥadith.

I say: The principles of ḥadith criticism do lend support to al-Azdī’s reservation; nevertheless, the ḥadith is ḥasan, if not ṣaḥīḥ, because it is corroborated by a report from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar with the same purport, which al-Munḏirī cited, saying: