“The rest of its narrators are narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ!” That is what he said, but I do not know whether Qays’s shaykh in al-Ṭabarānī’s narration was someone other than Ashʿath ibn Sawwār.

633 — “He would apply kohl to his right eye three times and to his left eye twice.”

Ibn Saʿd recorded it in al-Ṭabaqāt (1/484), from ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Jaʿfar, from ʿImrān ibn Abī Anas, who said: He cited it as a Prophetic report.

I say: This is a strong mursal chain of transmission. ʿImrān was a Successor, and he died in 117 AH.

Then Professor Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ brought to my attention its connected version in Akhlāq al-Nabī by Abū al-Shaykh (p. 183), through this same route, from ʿImrān, from Anas, as a Prophetic report with the same wording. Its narrators are trustworthy; thus, it is established with a connected chain, praise be to Allah.

It also has a corroborating report through ʿAtīq ibn Yaʿqūb al-Zubayrī, who informed us: ʿUqbah ibn ʿAlī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar, as a Prophetic report, with the wording: “When he applied kohl, he would apply it three times to the right eye and with two strokes of the applicator to the left, making the total an odd number.” Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (3/199/1).

I say: This is a weak chain of transmission. ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar—namely, the elder al-ʿUmarī—is weak. ʿUqbah ibn ʿAlī is not well-known. Al-ʿUqaylī said in al-Ḍuʿafāʾ: