“Ali ibn al-Madīnī—who has not been mentioned previously—Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥārithī, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Salām al-Jumaḥī, and Ismā‘īl ibn Isḥāq all agreed, in their reports from Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥamzah, that the hadith was narrated by al-Dārāwardī, from Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Amr ibn ‘Uthmān—known as al-Dībāj—from Abū al-Zinād; and this is correct.”

I say: Once this has been established, al-Dībāj is truthful; he was given this name because of his handsome appearance. The remaining narrators in the chain are trustworthy narrators used by Muslim, so the chain is good. It is further strengthened by the mursal narration of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Zinād from his father, from men among the sons of the Companions, as mentioned above; and by the existence of another route from Abū Hurayrah with the same wording, as will follow under 784.

As for its latter portion, it has a third route, recorded by Aḥmad (2/443): Wakī‘ narrated to us; he said: al-Naḥḥās narrated to us, from an unnamed shaykh in Mecca, from Abū Hurayrah, as a report attributed to the Prophet. This chain is weak because the Meccan shaykh is unknown and the narrator reporting from him is weak. What has preceded is the main basis, and it is sufficient.

Al-Manāwī left it blank, offering no comment at all on its chain of transmission, while al-Suyūṭī attributed it only to al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr. Then I found another route for it—that is, for the latter portion—which Ibn ‘Adī recorded in al-Kāmil (2/326), from Yaḥyā ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Bukayr: al-Mughīrah ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān narrated to us, from Abū al-Zinād, from al-A‘raj, from Abū Hurayrah, as a report attributed to the Prophet with the same wording.

I say: This is a good chain. Its narrators are trustworthy narrators used by both al-Bukhārī and Muslim. There is some criticism regarding this al-Mughīrah—who was al-Ḥizāmī al-Madanī—but it is not detrimental.

781 — “There is no contagion, no belief in ill omens, and the evil eye is real.”

Aḥmad recorded it (2/420) through the route of Ibn Wahb, who said: Ma‘rūf ibn Suwayd al-Judhāmī narrated to us that he heard ‘Alī ibn Rabāḥ say: I heard Abū Hurayrah relate it as a report attributed to the Prophet.