Then I became still more certain when I found it in its correct form in Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim (1558).

Another corroborating report is narrated by Sharīk, from al-Rukayn ibn al-Rabīʿ, from al-Qāsim ibn Ḥassān, from Zayd ibn Thābit, attributing it to the Prophet with the same wording. It was recorded by Aḥmad (5/181–189), Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim (1548–1549), and al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr (4921–4923). This is a good chain for corroborative reports and supporting narrations. Al-Haythamī said in al-Majmaʿ (1/170): “Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in al-Kabīr, and its narrators are trustworthy!” Elsewhere (9/163), after citing this hadith, he said: “Aḥmad narrated it, and its chain is sound!”

Long after documenting this hadith, it was decreed that I should emigrate from Damascus to Amman, and then travel from there to the United Arab Emirates, at the beginning of the year 1402 AH. In Qatar, I met some good professors and scholars, one of whom gave me a printed treatise of his in which he declared this hadith weak. When I read it, it became clear to me that he was new to this discipline, for two reasons which I mentioned to him.

First, in documenting the hadith, he confined himself to some of the commonly available printed sources. Consequently, he fell grossly short in properly examining the discussion concerning it, and he missed many routes and chains of transmission that are themselves authentic or good, quite apart from the corroborating reports and supporting narrations—as is clear to anyone who compares his documentation with what I have documented here.

Second, he paid no attention to the statements of the scholars who authenticated the hadith, nor to the rule they mentioned in hadith terminology: that a weak hadith gains strength through a multiplicity of chains. Thus, he fell into the grave error of declaring an authentic hadith weak.