and al-Ṭayālisī (1186) and Aḥmad (4/225), through al-Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah, from Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān ibn Abī Ḥathmah, from his uncle Sulaymān ibn Abī Ḥathmah.

I say: This chain is weak because of al-Ḥajjāj, who practiced concealed transmission and narrated it using an unqualified ʿan formula.

Al-Bayhaqī said:
“Its chain is disputed, and it revolves around al-Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah. What has already been mentioned is sufficient.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Būṣīrī responded to this, saying in al-Zawāʾid (117/2):
“I say: al-Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāʾah was not the only one to narrate it. Ibn Ḥibbān narrated it in his Ṣaḥīḥ, through Abū Yaʿlā, from Abū Khaythamah, from Abū Ḥāzim, from Sahl ibn Abī Ḥathmah, from his uncle Sulaymān ibn Abī Ḥathmah, who said: ‘I saw Muḥammad ibn Salamah,’ and then related the report.”

I say: This is how I found it in my own handwriting, copied from al-Zawāʾid. Perhaps part of its chain was omitted by me or by the copyist of the original—though I consider omission by the latter unlikely—for it is interrupted between Abū Khaythamah and Abū Ḥāzim. Abū Khaythamah, whose name was Zuhayr ibn Ḥarb, d. 274 AH. As for Abū Ḥāzim, he was either Salmān al-Ashjaʿī or Salamah ibn Dīnār al-Aʿraj, the latter being more likely; both were Successors, and the latter was the later to die, d. 140 AH.

Then I saw the hadith in Zawāʾid Ibn Ḥibbān (1225), exactly as I had quoted it from al-Būṣīrī, except that it reads “Abū Khāzim,” with khāʾ rather than ḥāʾ, and “Sahl ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥathmah” in place of “Suhayl ibn Abī Ḥathmah.” I found no biographical entry for Sahl ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥathmah. Perhaps he is mentioned in Ibn Ḥibbān’s al-Thiqāt; this should be checked.