In sum, the hadith narrated from Jābir is authentic in light of these sound corroborating reports. Praise be to Allah for His enabling grace.

Al-Suyūṭī cited the hadith in al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr, reporting it from al-Bayhaqī in al-Shuʿab and al-Ḍiyāʾ in al-Mukhtārah, on the authority of Jābir. Al-Manāwī deemed it defective on the basis of al-Haythamī’s previously cited statement: “It contains narrators whom I do not recognize.” Yet, as you know, he said this concerning Abū Yaʿlā’s route, and this does not necessarily apply to the routes of al-Bayhaqī and al-Ḍiyāʾ, as is demonstrated by Abū Nuʿaym’s narration, which contains no unrecognized narrator, as mentioned above.

I then came across Abū Yaʿlā’s chain of transmission. In his Musnad (2/499), he said: “ʿAbd al-Aʿlā narrated to us: al-Muʿtamir informed us: Abū Ismāʿīl informed us, from Abū al-Zubayr and al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Mughīth, from Jābir, attributed to the Prophet, with the wording of Abū Nuʿaym.”

There is no narrator in this chain whom I do not recognize, and all its narrators are trustworthy except this Abū Ismāʿīl, who is Ibrāhīm ibn Yazīd al-Khūzī; he is abandoned. Abū al-Zubayr has already been mentioned. As for al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Mughīth, he narrated from the Successors, and a group narrated from him, among them this Abū Ismāʿīl al-Khūzī. The one who narrated from him, al-Muʿtamir, was al-Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān ibn Ṭarkhān, one of the narrators relied upon by al-Bukhārī and Muslim. And ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, Abū Yaʿlā’s shaykh, was Ibn Ḥammād, known as al-Narsī, one of al-Bukhārī’s and Muslim’s shaykhs. Thus, I do not know how al-Haythamī failed to recognize some of these men!