I say: Ghassan has indeed been declared trustworthy, so the defect lies with Ja‘far, whom al-Bukhari judged to be extremely weak when he described his hadith as rejected. However, he was not alone in reporting it, for it has also come through another route from Ibn Umar. Al-Tabarani narrated it in al-Mu‘jam al-Kabir (3/203/2) through two chains from Sa‘id ibn Abi Maryam, who said: Yahya ibn Ayyub informed us, from Ubayd Allah ibn Zahr, from Layth ibn Abi Sulaym, from Mujahid, from Ibn Umar, attributing it to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, with the same wording.

Its narrators are trustworthy apart from Ibn Zahr and Ibn Abi Sulaym, both of whom are weak on account of their poor retention. Their report is thus strengthened by what Salamah ibn Wardan narrated: “I heard Anas ibn Malik say: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said”—and he mentioned the same wording, adding—“‘When the Earth Is Shaken’ is one quarter of the Quran, and ‘When Allah’s Help Comes’ is one quarter of the Quran.” Ahmad (3/146–147), al-Khatib in Tarikh Baghdad (11/380), and al-Tirmidhi (2/147) narrated it. Al-Tirmidhi said: “A good hadith.”

Its narrators are trustworthy apart from Salamah, who too is weak because of poor retention. Thus, the hadith is good on the strength of its combined routes, especially since it also has another route from Anas and a further corroborating report from Ibn Abbas; both are recorded in the other series (1342). It also has a third corroborating report, from Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas, attributed to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. Al-Tabarani narrated it in al-Mu‘jam al-Saghir (p. 32), and Abu Nu‘aym narrated it from him in Akhbar Asbahan (1/105). Al-Tabarani said: “Zakariyya ibn ‘Atiyyah alone narrated it.”

I say: He is unknown. Al-Hafiz mentioned the hadith in Nata’ij al-Afkar through this route of al-Tabarani and declared it defective on account of the narrator’s being unknown, then said: