I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission meeting Muslim’s criteria. In al-Jāmiʿ, it is attributed to Abū Yaʿlā on the authority of Anas, with the wording: “There will be men who recite the Quran, but it will not pass beyond their throats; they will pass out ...” to the end of the hadith. I did not find it in our photographic copy of Musnad Abī Yaʿlā, which has a gap in it.

Ahmad also related it in his Musnad (3/197) through another route, from Qatādah, from Anas, attributed to the Prophet, with the wording: “There will be disagreement and division within my ummah. From them will emerge people who recite the Quran, but it will not pass beyond their collarbones. Their distinguishing mark will be shaving and close-cropping; when you see them, put them to death.” Close-cropping means removing the short hair entirely. Its chain of transmission is authentic, and all its narrators are trustworthy.

The closest corroborating report to the wording cited in al-Jāmiʿ is that also related by Abū Yaʿlā (2/623), through Sammāk, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, attributed to the Prophet: “There will indeed be people from my ummah who recite the Quran and pass out of Islam ...” and so forth. Its chain is good. There are other corroborating reports with similar wording in the two Sahihs and elsewhere, on the authority of ʿAlī, Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, and others; and in Muslim and elsewhere, on the authority of Abū Dharr and Rāfiʿ ibn ʿAmr.

I then found the hadith of Anas in Ibn Khuzaymah’s al-Tawḥīd (p. 198), through Ḥawthah ibn ʿUbayd al-Daylī, from Anas, attributed to the Prophet, with the wording cited in al-Jāmiʿ. I did not recognize this Ḥawthah, although Ibn Khuzaymah mentioned three trustworthy narrators who transmitted from him. I then found that al-Bukhārī and Ibn Abī Ḥātim listed him under the letter jīm in their respective books, noting that he is also said to be called Ḥawthah, with an unpointed ḥāʾ. Al-Bukhārī considered the former correct, and neither of them mentioned any criticism or accreditation of him. Ibn Ḥibbān also listed him, with the jīm, in al-Thiqāt.