“It is a good, singular hadith from the narration of Abū Isḥāq from al-Barāʾ. It has also been narrated from al-Barāʾ through more than one route. Al-Ajlaḥ is Ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥujayyah ibn ʿAdī al-Kindī.”

I say: There is disagreement concerning him, though his hadith are good, Allah willing. However, his teacher Abū Isḥāq—namely, ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Sabīʿī—became confused in old age, and I do not know whether he heard from him before or after that confusion. Moreover, he practised tadlīs and transmitted it with an ambiguous “from.”

Among the routes to which al-Tirmidhī alluded is that recorded by Aḥmad (4/289), through Mālik, from Abū Dāwūd, who said: “I met al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib. He greeted me, took my hand, and smiled in my face. He said, ‘Do you know why I did this to you?’ I replied, ‘I do not know, but I can only think that you did it for some good reason.’ He said, ‘The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, met me and did to me just as I did to you. He then asked me, and I gave him the same reply that you gave me. He said: Whenever two Muslims meet, and one greets the other and takes his hand solely for Allah’s sake, they do not part until they are forgiven.’”

But its chain of transmission is very weak. Abū Dāwūd here is the blind man named Nufayʿ, an abandoned narrator, as al-Ḥāfiẓ stated in al-Taqrīb. On his account al-Mundhirī declared it defective in al-Targhīb (3/270), and then al-Haythamī did likewise in al-Majmaʿ (8/37), though he attributed it only to al-Ṭabarānī in al-Awsaṭ!

Another is that found in Aḥmad (4/293), through Zuhayr, from Abū Balj Yaḥyā ibn Abī Sulaym, who said: Abū al-Ḥakam al-Baṣrī narrated to us, from Abū Baḥr, from al-Barāʾ, that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Whenever two Muslims meet, and one takes his companion’s hand and then praises Allah, they part with no sin between them.”

Ibn Abī Ḥātim related from his father (2/274):