I say: This Ibrāhīm is weak; and even if it were authentically transmitted from Wahb, it would not be fit to serve as corroboration, for it explicitly belongs to the Isrāʾīliyyāt—reports from the Israelite tradition—which we have been instructed neither to affirm nor to deny. Similar to it is what Abū al-Faḍl al-Muqriʾ al-Rāzī narrated in Hadiths Concerning the Censure of Speculative Theology (204/1), from Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Ṣanʿānī, from al-Awzāʿī, from Ḥassān ibn ʿAṭiyyah, who said: “Allah said …” He then cited a similar hadith, with a double break in its chain and stopping at Ḥassān.

The Ḥāfiẓ—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—also overlooked the hadith of Maymūnah, attributed to the Prophet in its entirety, like al-Ṭabarānī’s hadith from ʿĀʾishah. It was narrated by Abū Yaʿlā in his Musnad (fol. 334/1), and by Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī in The Key to Meanings (13/1, no. 15), through Yūsuf ibn Khālid al-Samtī: ʿUmar ibn Isḥāq narrated to us that he heard ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār narrating from her. However, this chain of transmission is very weak, for regarding this al-Samtī, al-Ḥāfiẓ said: “They abandoned him, and Ibn Maʿīn declared him a liar.” Thus, it is not fit for corroboration at all. Al-Haythamī said: “Abū Yaʿlā narrated it, and its chain includes Yūsuf ibn Khālid al-Samtī, who is a liar.”

In summary, most of these corroborating reports are not suitable for strengthening the hadith, either because their chains of transmission are extremely weak or because they are abbreviated. The exceptions are the hadith of ʿĀʾishah and the hadith of Anas through its two routes; when these are combined with the chain of transmission of Abū Hurayrah’s hadith, the hadith is strengthened by their collective force and rises to the rank of authentic, if Allah Most High wills. It has also been authenticated by the scholars previously mentioned.

Note: In Mabāriq al-Azhār: A Commentary on Mashāriq al-Anwār (in the eleventh chapter on the sacred sayings, 2/338), it is stated that al-Bukhārī narrated this hadith from Anas and Abū Hurayrah with the wording: