“We were sitting with ʿAbd Allāh when a man came and said, ‘The prayer has begun.’ So he rose, and we rose with him. When we entered the mosque, we saw the people bowing at the front of the mosque. He pronounced the takbīr and bowed, and we bowed. Then he moved forward, and we did as he had done. A man passed by in haste and said, ‘Peace be upon you, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.’ He replied, ‘Allah and His Messenger have spoken the truth.’ When we had prayed and returned, he went in to his family, while we remained seated. Some of us said to the others, ‘Did you not hear his response to the man: “Allah has spoken the truth, and His Messengers have conveyed it”? Which of you will ask him?’ Ṭāriq said, ‘I will ask him.’ So he asked him when he came out, and he related it from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), mentioning the hadith.”

I say: This chain of transmission is authentic according to the criteria of Muslim.

Aḥmad then said (1/419–420): Yaḥyā ibn Ādam narrated to us: Bashīr Abū Ismāʿīl informed us of it, but without his words, “and false testimony …,” and without the account of bowing and moving forward. Its chain of transmission is also authentic.

Abū Nuʿaym differed from both of them. Bashīr ibn Sulaymān narrated it to us with the same chain, similar to al-Zubayrī’s version, except that he did not mention, “and the severing of kinship ties …” Instead, he said: “Until a man sets out with his wealth to the farthest regions of the earth, then returns and says, ‘I have made no profit at all.’” Al-Ḥākim recorded it (4/445–446) through the route of al-Sirrī ibn Khuzaymah, who said: Abū Nuʿaym narrated to us. Both he and al-Dhahabī made no comment on it. Abū Nuʿaym—al-Faḍl ibn Dukayn—was trustworthy and an authoritative narrator. However, I could not find any biographical entry for al-Sirrī ibn Khuzaymah, who narrated from him.