from al-Layth ibn Saʿd, from ʿUqayl, from Ibn Shihāb, who said: Abū Salamah and Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib informed me that Abū Hurayrah informed them that he heard the Messenger of Allah say it.

Al-Tirmidhī (2/3, Būlāq edition) and Aḥmad (2/241) also narrated it from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah alone, with this wording. Al-Tirmidhī said: “An authentic hadith. The black seed is black cumin.” Muslim likewise narrated it from Ibn ʿUyaynah. He and Aḥmad (2/268, 343) then narrated it from Maʿmar and Shuʿayb, all of them from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah alone. He and Aḥmad also narrated it (2/510) through two further routes, from Ibn Shihāb, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib alone, from Abū Hurayrah, with the wording: “Take this black seed.” It will come under no. 863.

Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr corroborated him in reporting it from Abū Salamah, with the wording: “In the black seed there is a cure for every disease except death.” They asked: “O Messenger of Allah, what is death?” He replied: “Death.”

Aḥmad (2/261, 423, 429, 504) narrated it through several routes from him.

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. The hadith has other routes from Abū Hurayrah, as well as corroborating reports with the wordings: “Indeed, this seed ...” and “There is no disease except in ...” Among its corroborating reports is that which Aḥmad (6/146) narrated through Ibrāhīm ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Ḥabībah al-Ashhalī, from Dāwūd ibn al-Ḥuṣayn, from al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, from ʿĀʾishah, attributed to the Prophet with precisely this wording. Its narrators are trustworthy and are among the narrators of the Six Books, apart from this Ibrāhīm ibn Ismāʿīl, who is weak.