“Authentic according to al-Bukhari’s criteria,” and al-Dhahabi agreed with him. Ibn ‘Asakir said: “This is a good hadith.”

I say: There is disagreement as to whether al-Hasan heard from ‘Imran. Moreover, he practised tadlīs and transmitted it using an ambiguous “from” formulation. ‘Abdullah ibn Salih, although one of al-Bukhari’s shaykhs, is weak in respect of his retention. As for the words, “Whoever fights ...,” they were narrated by the compilers of the Sunan and others from the hadith of Mu‘adh. Ibn Hibban, al-Hakim, and others declared it authentic; some of its chains are authentic. I have traced it in my commentary on al-Targhib (2/169).

I then found a corroborating narrator for Ibn Salih: al-‘Uqayli narrated it in al-Du‘afa’ (p. 30), and al-Khatib in al-Tarikh (10/295), through the route of Yahya ibn Sulaym, who said: Isma‘il ibn ‘Ubaydullah ibn Salman al-Makki narrated to us, who said: al-Hasan narrated it to us in the same manner.

903 — “Were you to commit sins until your sins reached the sky, then repent, He would surely accept your repentance.”

Ibn Majah (2/561–562) narrated it: Ya‘qub ibn Humayd ibn Kasib al-Madani narrated to us; Abu Mu‘awiyah narrated to us; Ja‘far ibn Burqan narrated to us, from Yazid ibn al-Asamm, from Abu Hurayrah, as a Prophetic report.

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy and are among Muslim’s narrators, except Ya‘qub ibn Humayd, who is truthful but sometimes erred, as stated in al-Taqrib. In al-Zawa’id: