= Takhrij al-Ahyaʾ 2/331: “Its chain of transmission (isnad) is hasan (good).” Note. Shaykh Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾut wrote a marginal comment on this hadith in Sharh al-Sunnah 6/371 and in Tahdhib al-Kamal 4/569, objecting to al-Hakim’s authentication on the grounds that Bazham, the client of Umm Hani, is weak and a mudallis (one who conceals his source). He added: “The matter became confused for Shaykh Nasir in Adab al-Zifaf; he thought the narrator to be Abu Salih al-Samman, who is reliable, so he followed al-Hakim and al-Dhahabi in grading the hadith authentic, and thus erred.” He then produced an extended documentation of the hadith that, in truth, adds nothing, and based his criticism on the discrepancies concerning Simak in the isnad, on Simak’s mistake in linking the report to the Day of Conquest, and on allegations of anonymity and weakness. By way of reply and in order to clarify the fact, I say: First: What he ascribes to me as mere conjecture stems only from his poor opinion of his brother and his well-known attempts to pounce on a slip. The context of my words makes it plain that the narrator is Abu Salih, the client of Umm Hani. Even if that were not stated explicitly, beginners in this field know it, for it is famous among the scholars. Can any fair-minded person imagine that someone who has spent more than half a century in this discipline would overlook it? Shaykh Shuʿayb himself knows this, but… I concurred with al-Hakim’s authentication solely because of the additional lines of transmission that I mentioned afterward, and with respect to the second of those I said: