It was recorded by al-Tirmidhī (2/325), Aḥmad (1/171 and 186), al-Ḥākim, Tamām al-Rāzī in al-Fawāʾid (218/2) and Musnad al-Muqillīn min al-Umarāʾ wa-al-Salāṭīn (no. 201), al-Haytham ibn Kulayb in his Musnad (18/2), Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī in al-Fitan (163/1–2), al-Baghawī in Sharḥ al-Sunnah (4/157), Ibn ʿAsākir (15/189/2), and al-Ḍiyāʾ in al-Mukhtārah (1/345), through Ṣāliḥ ibn Kaysān, from al-Zuhrī, from him, with the same wording. Al-Tirmidhī said: “It is a singular hadith through this route.”
Al-ʿIrāqī said in Maḥajjat al-Qurb fī Faḍl al-ʿArab (folio 20/1), following it: “I say: Its narrators are trustworthy. He deemed it singular only through this route—not absolutely—because of the unusual nature of its chain of transmission: it brings together five Successors, each narrating from the next, the first being Ṣāliḥ ibn Kaysān and the last Muḥammad ibn Saʿd.”
I say: What he stated concerning their reliability and his explanation do not seem sound to me. For Yūsuf ibn al-Ḥakam and Muḥammad ibn Abī Sufyān are not well known; no one declared them trustworthy except Ibn Ḥibbān, whose leniency in declaring narrators trustworthy is well known among critical scholars. The former is less well known than the latter. I therefore think that he deemed it singular because of this unknown status. And Allah knows best.
Its chain from al-Zuhrī has been transmitted in several different ways:
The first: this one.
The second: Maʿmar narrated it from him, from ʿUmar ibn Saʿd or someone else, that Saʿd ibn Mālik said—and he mentioned something similar to it. Aḥmad recorded it (1/176): ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us; Maʿmar narrated to us. Al-Ḍiyāʾ likewise recorded it in al-Mukhtārah (1/340 and 341). Its narrators are trustworthy, were it not for the doubt that occurred in its chain.
Ibn ʿAdī did, however, record it (folio 92/1) through al-Ḥasan ibn Dāwūd, from ʿAbd al-Razzāq, with the same wording, except that he said: from ʿUmar ibn Saʿd, from his father, without expressing any doubt. But this al-Ḥasan is al-Munkadirī, and there is weakness in him. Ibn ʿAdī said: