“Zuhayr has narrated this hadith with precision, and I do not know of anyone who has narrated it as precisely as he did.” I asked my father, “Is it reliably preserved?” He replied, “Zuhayr is trustworthy.”

I say: Zuhayr was Ibn Muʿāwiyah, but he was contradicted regarding its chain of transmission. Hushaym narrated it from Abū Balj, from Zayd Abū al-Ḥakam al-ʿAnazī, from al-Barāʾ, with similar wording. Abū Dāwūd recorded it (5311).

In al-Taʿjīl (pp. 292–293), al-Ḥāfiẓ gave preference to Hushaym’s narration because Abū ʿAwānah corroborated him, though he did not mention its source. Accordingly, the hidden defect in this chain of transmission is this Zayd—namely, Zayd ibn Abī al-Shaʿthāʾ, Abū al-Ḥakam al-ʿAnazī—whom al-Dhahabī described as unknown.

The hadith has a corroborating report from Anas, traced back to the Prophet, with the wording: “Whenever two Muslims meet and one takes his companion’s hand, Allah has undertaken to answer their supplication and not to let their hands part before He forgives them.” Aḥmad recorded it (3/142): Muḥammad ibn Bakr narrated to us; Maymūn al-Murāʾī narrated to us; Maymūn ibn Siyāh narrated to us, from Anas ibn Mālik.

Al-Mundhirī said in al-Targhīb (3/270): “It was narrated by Aḥmad, al-Bazzār, and Abū Yaʿlā. All of Aḥmad’s narrators are trustworthy except Maymūn al-Murāʾī, and this hadith is among those denounced in his narration.”

I say: He has an entry in al-Tahdhīb under the name “Maymūn ibn Mūsā al-Marʾī,” where Maymūn ibn Siyāh is listed among his teachers, and al-Bursānī—namely, Muḥammad ibn Bakr—among those who narrated from him. However, al-Ḍiyāʾ included it in al-Mukhtārah (folio 240/1–2) through Aḥmad by this route, and through Abū Yaʿlā and Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Fasawī, from Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿArʿarah: Yūsuf ibn Yaʿqūb al-Sadūsī narrated to us; Maymūn ibn ʿAjlān narrated to us, from Maymūn ibn Siyāh, with the same report. Thus, he named Maymūn’s father as ʿAjlān, which is why al-Haythamī said in al-Majmaʿ (8/36):