“There is weakness in each of the two chains of transmission.” Abu Nuʿaym said: “The name of Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hibar was ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.”

I say: Al-Baghawī also recorded it through the route of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Hibar, with this chain. However, its chain contains ʿAlī ibn Qurayn (the original reads: Qars!), who has been accused of fabricating hadith.

Al-Khaṭīb, however, transmitted it in al-Muʾtalif through Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Thābit. We have a higher chain for it in the Fawāʾid of Ibn Abī Thābit, where he transmits it with his chain reaching Muḥammad ibn Salamah (the original reads: Aḥmad ibn Salamah) al-Ḥarrānī, from (al-Fazārī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn) ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hibar, from his father, who said: “Hibar married off his daughter, and a tambourine was played at her wedding.” The hadith then follows.

Al-Ismāʿīlī transmitted it in Muʿjam al-Ṣaḥābah, and al-Khaṭīb in al-Muʾtalif through his route—transcribing it from his handwriting—as follows: Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir ibn Abī al-Dumaykah informed me; Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Harawī narrated to us; Hushaym narrated to us; Abū Jaʿfar informed me, from Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Hibar, from his father, who said: “The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, passed by the house of ʿAlī ibn Hibar,” and he then related the hadith as previously given in the biographical entry on ʿAlī ibn Hibar. That is, it is like the narration of Ibn Mandah mentioned shortly before.

Abū Jaʿfar is how it appears in al-Khaṭīb’s handwriting, in place of Abū Maʿshar. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said in his biographical entry on Ibn Hibar: “I do not know whether this was an inadvertent error or a discrepancy among the transmitters.” The material within parentheses has been supplied from this biographical entry and from the booklet Hadith Ibn Abī Thābit, preserved at the al-Ẓāhiriyyah Library in Damascus (2/138/2). Al-Fazārī is the aforementioned al-ʿArzamī, as al-Ḥāfiẓ definitively stated; and he said: “Al-ʿArzamī is very weak.”

In sum, this hadith, with this chain of transmission, is weak because of its inconsistency, the unknown status of some of its narrators, and the weakness of others among them. Yet it has a supporting narration from al-Sāʾib ibn Yazīd, who said: “The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, encountered girls singing: ‘Welcome us, and we shall welcome you.’ He spoke to them, then called them over and said: ‘Do not say this; rather, say: “May we and you be welcomed.”’ A man said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, may we allow people to do this?’ He replied: ‘Yes, for this is marriage, not illicit intercourse. Make marriage public.’”