the two of them. For in al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr (1/210/2), he attributed it to both of them and to Abu ʿAwanah, on the authority of Abu Saʿid. This is correct, as will become clear to you from this documentation.
1691 — “Allah has vessels among the people of the earth, and the vessels of your Lord are the hearts of His righteous servants; the most beloved of them to Him are the softest and tenderest.”
Al-Tabarani narrated it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (folio 40/1, selections from it): Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Firyabi narrated to us; he said: Ishaq ibn Rahawayh narrated to us; he said: Baqiyyah ibn al-Walid informed us; he said: Muhammad ibn Ziyad narrated to me from Abu ʿAnbah al-Khawlani, who attributed it to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and then cited it.
I say: This is a strong chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy and precise, apart from Baqiyyah, who was truthful but frequently practised concealment in transmission from weak narrators, as al-Hafiz stated. Here, however, he explicitly stated direct transmission, as you can see, and we are thus safeguarded against the harm of his concealment. For this reason, al-Hafiz al-ʿIraqi said in Takhrij al-Ihyaʾ (2/154): “Al-Tabarani narrated it, and its chain is good.” Elsewhere (3/13), he said: “It contains Baqiyyah ibn al-Walid, who practised concealment in transmission, but he explicitly stated direct transmission.” Likewise, al-Haythami said—as cited and endorsed by al-Manawi—“Its chain is good.”
Abu Mutiʿ al-Atrabulusi differed from him, narrating it from Muhammad ibn Ziyad, from him, as a report attributed to the Companion. Abu Talib al-Makki al-Muʾadhdhin narrated it in his Hadith collection (folio 230/2), as did al-Diyaʾ al-Maqdisi in al-Muntaqa min Hadith Abi ʿAli al-Awqi (1/2).
However, this Abu Mutiʿ—whose name was Muʿawiyah ibn Yahya—was truthful but prone to errors. Baqiyyah’s narration is therefore more weighty. It also has a corroborating narration from Abu Umamah, attributed to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, with similar wording; but it is very weak.