“This is an authentic chain of transmission meeting Ibn Ḥibbān’s criteria, for he included all its narrators in his al-Thiqāt (The Trustworthy Narrators).”

I say: Ibn Ḥibbān’s standard for declaring narrators trustworthy involves considerable leniency, for he declares unknown narrators trustworthy, such as this Rabīʿah ibn Nājid, from whom no one besides Abū Ṣādiq narrated. Al-Ḍiyāʾ al-Maqdisī also transmitted it in al-Aḥādīth al-Mukhtārah (Selected Hadiths) (fol. 67/1), in full, through the route mentioned above.

Aḥmad (5/216/226) and Ibn ʿAsākir, in Tārīkh Dimashq (History of Damascus) (8/428/1), also transmitted it through two other routes from al-Miqdām ibn Maʿdī Karib, from ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit, with similar wording. Thus, in view of all its routes, the hadith is authentic, if Allah Most High wills. I then found that Ibn Abī Ḥātim cited it (1/453) through another route from ʿUbādah, with the wording of Ibn Mājah’s narration, and said: “My father said: ‘This is a good hadith, if it has been reliably preserved.’” I say: It has undoubtedly been reliably preserved through all these routes.

671 — “He was a human being like other human beings: he would remove lice from his garment, milk his sheep, and serve himself.”

Imām Aḥmad transmitted it (6/256): Ḥammād ibn Khālid narrated to us; he said: Layth ibn Saʿd narrated to us, from Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ, from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, from al-Qāsim, from ʿĀʾishah, who said: “She was asked: ‘What did the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, do in his home?’ She replied…” Then he cited it.

I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission meeting Muslim’s criteria. ʿAbd Allah ibn Ṣāliḥ contradicted him, saying: Muʿāwiyah ibn Ṣāliḥ narrated to me through the same chain, except that he said, “ʿUrwah” in place of “al-Qāsim.” Al-Bukhārī transmitted it in al-Adab al-Mufrad (Manners in Isolation) (541), and al-Tirmidhī transmitted it from him in al-Shamāʾil (The Prophetic Characteristics)