When his narration is combined with that of Bishr ibn Rāfiʿ, the hadith is strengthened by their combined force and rises to the rank of a good hadith. ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubārak also transmitted it in al-Zuhd (679) as a mursal report, saying: “Usāmah ibn Zayd informed us, from a man of Banū al-Ḥārith ibn ʿUqbah, from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, from Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said”—then he mentioned it. This man was Abū al-Asbāṭ al-Ḥārithī, Bishr ibn Rāfiʿ, as stated by the esteemed annotator of al-Zuhd.

Ibn Wahb also transmitted it through this chain in al-Jāmiʿ (p. 39): “Usāmah ibn Zayd narrated it to me,” with the same wording. I have found a corroborating report for the hadith, but it is not one to be pleased with because of its extreme weakness. I mention it in order to clarify its condition. Al-Ṭabarānī transmitted it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr from Kaʿb ibn Mālik as a Prophetic report, with the same wording. Al-Haythamī said in al-Majmaʿ (1/82): “It contains Yūsuf ibn al-Safar, who is a liar.”

Note: Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī, may Allah Most High have mercy on him, said:

“The guileless person, in Arabic usage, is one who has no hidden malice and no inward reality that differs from his outward appearance. Whoever is of this disposition, the Muslims are safe (the original reads: ‘from the Muslims’) from his tongue and his hand; this is an attribute of the believers. The wicked person, however, has an outward appearance contrary to his inward reality, because his inward reality is something disliked, while his outward appearance is the opposite of that. He is like the hypocrite, who outwardly displays something unobjectionable—namely Islam, for which its adherents praise him—while concealing its opposite: disbelief, for which the Muslims condemn him.”