Through this same route the report was also cited by al-Bukhārī in his History and by Ibn al-Sakan, as noted in al-Iṣābah. Al-Suyūṭī, in al-Khaṣāʾiṣ ⦗1/409⦘, attributed it to Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr in his Sunan, to al-Ṭabarānī, to Ibn Mardawayh, and to Abū Nuʿaym in al-Maʿrifah, yet—true to form—offered no appraisal. The modern editor, Dr. al-Harrās, judged it defective on the grounds of irsāl, remarking: “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Qarṭ is a Successor, so the report is mursal.”

This is a mistake born of his assumption that the ʿAbd al-Raḥmān in question is the narrator who reports from Ḥudhayfah—and that man is indeed a Successor. In fact, however, our narrator is al-Thumalī al-Ḥimṣī, one of the People of the Ṣuffah. The two are clearly distinguished in al-Tahdhīb and elsewhere, and under the entry for the latter the hadith is quoted in al-Iṣābah.

In sum, the defect in the narration is the anonymity of the transmitter, not a break in the chain.

Ibn Kathīr, for his part, left it without comment.