I say: It is only good, because Usāmah ibn Zayd—the al-Laythī—is subject to slight criticism. Ibn Khuzaymah’s name was ʿUmārah, and he was trustworthy. Nevertheless, the hadith is authentic, for it has numerous corroborating reports in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections and elsewhere. Among its corroborating reports is that which al-Suyūṭī cited in al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr, from the hadith of al-Shurayd ibn Suwayd, attributed to the Prophet: “Stoning is an expiation for what she did.” He said: “Al-Nasāʾī and al-Ḍiyāʾ narrated it in al-Mukhtārah.” In al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr (1/346/2), he added: “As did al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr and Samawayh.”

Its occasion, as recorded in al-Ṭabarānī’s al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (7252), through his chain from al-Shurayd, was that he said: “A woman was stoned to death during the time of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. When we had finished with her, we came to him”—then he cited the hadith. Its chain contains al-Qāsim ibn Rushdayn ibn ʿUmayrah, concerning whom al-Nasāʾī said: “I do not know him.”

I say: It is not found in al-Nasāʾī’s Minor Sunan; this is why al-Nābulusī did not cite it in al-Dhakhāʾir. Perhaps it is found in his Major Sunan. I had not come across its chain of transmission in order to examine it, nor is it contained in the preserved portion of Samawayh’s Fawāʾid at the al-Ẓāhiriyyah. I then came across its chain through al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿAsqalānī’s al-Nukat al-Ẓirāf (4/154), and found that it comes through another route, which does not contain the aforementioned al-Qāsim. Its narrators are trustworthy, apart from Yaḥyā ibn Sulaymān, of whom al-Dhahabī said in al-Kāshif: “He is passable.” However, Abū al-Ṭāhir ibn al-Sarḥ differed from him, narrating it from ʿAmr ibn al-Shurayd as a mursal report, without saying, “from his father.” Al-Nasāʾī narrated it in al-Sunan al-Kubrā, and that version is more correct.