—whose name is ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Thābit. The scholars differ about him, but the settled judgement is that his narrations are good so long as he does not contradict others.

The ḥadīth also has additional chains and supporting reports which I have traced in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl (405).

116 – “Satan comes to one of you and says, ‘Who created you?’ He answers, ‘Allah.’ Satan then says, ‘So who created Allah?!’ If anyone of you experiences this, let him recite: ‘Āmantu billāhi wa rusulihi (I believe in Allah and in His messengers),’ for that will remove the thought from him.”

It was narrated by Aḥmad (6/258): Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl told us; al-Ḍaḥḥāk told us, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, from ʿĀʾishah, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said the foregoing.

I say: This chain is good and fulfils Muslim’s criteria, for all of its transmitters are men he relied upon in his Ṣaḥīḥ. Some leading scholars criticised al-Ḍaḥḥāk—namely Ibn ʿUthmān al-Asadī al-Ḥizāmī—for the weakness of his memory, yet that does not lower his ḥadīths from the level of being good, Allah willing.

He is followed up by Sufyān al-Thawrī and Layth ibn Sālim in Ibn al-Sunnī (201); therefore the ḥadīth is authentic.

Al-Munādhirī said in al-Targhīb (2/266): “It was reported by Aḥmad with a good chain, by Abū Yaʿlā and al-Bazzār; and al-Ṭabarānī related it in al-Kabīr and al-Awsat from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr. Aḥmad also transmitted it from the narration of Khuzaymah ibn—”