I say: This Ismāʿīl was truthful, as Abū Ḥātim stated, and he was the brother of Imam ʿAbd Allāh ibn Maslamah. Al-Dhahabī said: “I know of no fault in him, except that he did not attain the same degree of trustworthiness as his brother.”

I say: He then cited a hadith which Ismāʿīl erred in attributing directly to the Prophet, but this does not undermine him, for no human being is immune from error. Ibn Ḥibbān and al-Ḥākim declared him trustworthy. Thus, the hadith has a good chain of transmission, since the narrators preceding him are known to be trustworthy. The well-known disagreement concerning Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr does not impair it or prevent his hadith from being used as evidence.

Al-Bayhaqī also narrated the hadith in al-Sunan (2/266) through this route and said: “If authentic, it only means—Allah knows best—that one stroke suffices to fulfil what was commanded, for he, peace and blessings be upon him, ordered that it be killed. And he meant—Allah knows best—that this suffices if the snake desists on its own when the blow misses; he did not intend thereby to prohibit striking it more than once.”

Al-Manāwī made no comment on the hadith, as though he had not come across its chain of transmission.