Ahmad recorded it (4/185), as did Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim in al-Sunnah (folio 107/1, no. 1014, edited by me), Abū al-ʿAbbās Jumāḥ ibn al-Qāsim in A Selection of His Hadith (57/2), ʿAlī ibn Ṭāhir al-Sulamī in The Book of Jihad (2/1/2), Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bazzār ibn Makhlad in Dictations, and Ibn ʿAsākir in History of Damascus (8/241/1), through Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh, from Ḍamḍam ibn Zurʿah, from Shurayḥ ibn ʿUbayd, from Kathīr ibn Murrah, from ʿUtbah ibn ʿAbd, attributed to the Prophet.

This is a good Syrian chain of transmission. There is some criticism concerning some of its narrators, but it is not detrimental. Al-Haythamī said in The Compendium (4/192): “It was narrated by Ahmad and al-Ṭabarānī, and its narrators are reliable.” His teacher, the ḥadīth master al-ʿIrāqī, said in The Path to Nearness through Love of the Arabs (folio 19/2), after narrating it through Ahmad’s route: “It is an authentic hadith. The narrators in its chain are reliable, and Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh’s narrations from Syrians are sound, unlike his narrations from Hijazis.”

It also has a corroborating report attributed to the Companion, from the hadith of Abū Hurayrah. Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim recorded it in al-Sunnah (1024) with an authentic chain from him, containing the first clause of it.

1852 — “All creatures invoke blessings upon the teacher of good, even the fish of the sea.”

Ibn ʿAdī narrated it (64/1), and through him al-Jurjānī (p. 22) and al-Daylamī (2/136), from Shādh ibn Fayyāḍ: al-Ḥārith ibn Shibl narrated to us, from Umm al-Nuʿmān, from ʿĀʾishah, attributed to the Prophet. He mentioned it in al-Ḥārith’s biographical entry along with other hadiths, then said: “These hadiths are not preserved.”

I say: Shādh ibn Fayyāḍ and al-Ḥārith ibn Shibl are weak.