I say: Al-Bukhārī recorded it through this route in al-Tārīkh, as did Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Mandah in Maʿrifat al-Ṣaḥābah (42/531), Ibn ʿAsākir in Tārīkh Dimashq (1/232/1), and al-Ḍiyāʾ in al-Mukhtārah (1/247). Al-Bukhārī and Ibn Mandah explicitly stated that Ibn Isḥāq narrated it directly, thus dispelling the concern over his concealment in transmission. All its other narrators are trustworthy; it is therefore a good chain of transmission with a continuous chain. Al-Khaṭīb also narrated, in al-Tārīkh (3/64), through this route, only the hadith cited under the heading, without the story.

I have found a corroborating report for it, narrated by Ibn Lahīʿah from Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb and ʿUqayl, from al-Zuhrī, from Anas, attributed to the Prophet. Al-Quḍāʿī recorded it in Musnad al-Shihāb (9/2) through al-Ṭabarānī. This chain is acceptable for corroborative evidence. The story alone, apart from the hadith, has another route in Muslim (8/119) and Aḥmad (3/281), through Thābit from Anas, with similar wording. Al-Ḥākim mistakenly claimed it as an omission from Muslim’s collection, as did some annotators of al-Maqāṣid al-Ḥasanah when they categorically asserted that the hadith cited under the heading was narrated from Anas by Muslim. Al-Ḥākim also recorded it from ʿĀʾishah; its chain contains Abū Muʿādh Sulaymān ibn al-Arqam al-Anṣārī, who is very weak. Its documentation and an explanation of its rejected additions will come under no. (4964) in the other book.

I say: The hadith is an explicit text showing that the members of the Prophet’s Household—may Allah be pleased with them—are susceptible to the same sins as others, except those whom Allah Most High has preserved from sin. It is like his statement—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—to ʿĀʾishah in the incident of the slander: “O ʿĀʾishah, I have heard such-and-such concerning you. If you are innocent, Allah will clear you; but if you have fallen into a sin, then seek Allah’s forgiveness and repent to Him...”