“This hadith is good and authentic.” Al-Kharqi also authenticated it.

I say: Al-Iraqi transmitted it in al-ʿAshariyyat (59/1), through this same route, with an uninterrupted succession of narrators each stating, “It was the first hadith I heard from him.” He then said: “This hadith is authentic.”

Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi likewise authenticated it in some of his lecture sessions preserved at the Zahiriyyah Library in Damascus, though their folios are in disordered sequence. He said: “Abu Qabus has a supporting narrator: we transmitted it in the Musnads of Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Abd ibn Humayd, in the hadith of Abu Khidash, Hibban ibn Zayd al-Shurahbili al-Himsi—one of the trustworthy narrators—from Abdullah ibn Amr, with the same meaning. The hadith also has corroborating reports from more than twenty Companions, including Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf—may Allah be pleased with them.”

I say: Its narrators are trustworthy and are narrators of the two Shaykhs, apart from Abu Qabus. Al-Dhahabi said: “He is unknown.” Al-Hafiz said: “Acceptable”—that is, when supported by corroboration. He has in fact been supported, as mentioned above from Ibn Nasir al-Din, in addition to the corroborating reports to which he referred. Among them is the hadith of Abu Ishaq, from Abu Zabyan, from Jarir, attributed to the Prophet, with the wording: “Whoever does not show mercy to those on earth will not be shown mercy by the One in heaven.”

Al-Tabarani transmitted it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabir (1/118/2). Al-Mundhiri said in al-Targhib (3/155): “Its chain of transmission is good and strong!”