Abd Allah, the son of Imam Ahmad, recorded it in Kitab al-Sunnah (p. 186). Its chain of transmission is good, and the hadith is authentic through its various chains.

1078 — “Ever since he was entrusted with it, the gaze of the bearer of the Trumpet has remained poised, fixed upon the Throne, fearing that he may be commanded before his glance returns to him; his eyes are like two shining stars.”

Al-Hakim recorded it (4/558–559) through the route of Muhammad ibn Hisham ibn Mallas al-Numayri: Marwan ibn Muʿawiyah al-Fazari narrated to us from Ubayd Allah ibn Abd Allah ibn al-Asamm, who narrated to us from Yazid ibn al-Asamm, from Abu Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said it. Al-Hakim said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic.” Al-Dhahabi agreed with him and added: “According to Muslim’s criteria!”

I say: Al-Hakim was correct, whereas al-Dhahabi was mistaken. Al-Fazari is among Muslim’s narrators, but not among his teachers; and Ibn Mallas was not narrated from by Muslim at all. He is truthful, as Ibn Abi Hatim stated (1/4/116). Therefore, it is not according to Muslim’s criteria.

Ibn Hajar deemed it good in Fath al-Bari (11/368). The explanation is that al-Hakim, may Allah have mercy on him, followed the practice in his book al-Mustadrak ʿala al-Sahihayn of declaring a chain authentic according to the criteria of the two shaykhs, or of one of them, beginning from one of their teachers. That is, the narrators from al-Hakim up to that teacher are trustworthy, and his chain to him is, at the very least, authentic; yet it is not according to their criteria, since they are obviously of a lower generation than the two shaykhs.

Thus, if we are to follow al-Hakim in this terminology, the chain of the hadith must end with a teacher of al-Bukhari and Muslim, or of one of them, for it to be correctly said that it meets their criteria. If a chain that meets Muslim’s criteria, for example—as in this case—ends with one of Muslim’s narrators who is the teacher of a narrator belonging to the generation of Muslim’s teachers, rather than being Muslim’s actual teacher, as is the case with Ibn Mallas here, then it is not valid to say that it meets Muslim’s criteria.

What further clarifies the matter is that, if we suppose a chain of al-Hakim ending with Saʿid ibn al-Musayyib, from Abu Hurayrah—and it is known that Saʿid and Abu Hurayrah are among the narrators of both of them—yet al-Hakim’s chain to Saʿid does not meet the criteria of the two shaykhs, that is, neither of them narrated from its narrators in his Sahih.