Ibn Abī Ḥabīb also has another chain of transmission for it, with the wording: “My community will remain upon its innate disposition so long as they do not delay the Maghrib prayer until the stars become intermingled.” It is cited in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd (444) and al-Irwāʾ, under hadith 917.

1916 — “Abū Ṭalḥah’s voice in the army is better than a troop.”

Aḥmad (3/111, 112, and 261), Ibn Saʿd (3/505), al-Ḥākim (3/352), Abū Nuʿaym in al-Ḥilyah (7/309), al-Khaṭīb in al-Tārīkh (13/224), and Ibn ʿAsākir in his Tārīkh (6/310/1) recorded it through Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from ʿAlī ibn Judʿān, from Anas, tracing it back to the Prophet, with this wording. Abū Nuʿaym said: “It is a well-known report from Ibn ʿUyaynah; he alone transmitted it from Ibn Zayd.” Aḥmad (3/249) also recorded it through Ḥammād ibn Salamah, from ʿAlī ibn Zayd, with the same wording.

I say: He is ʿAlī ibn Zayd ibn Judʿān, who is weak because of his poor memory. However, it appears that he was not alone in narrating it, for al-Ḥākim and Ibn ʿAsākir recorded it through two other routes from Sufyān, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAqīl, from Jābir—or, as al-Ḥākim said, from Anas—with the wording: “a thousand men.” Al-Ḥākim said: “Its narrators, from first to last, are trustworthy.”

I say: Ibn ʿAqīl has been criticised on account of his memory, but his hadith is good, if Allah Most High wills, especially when corroborated, as it is here. It appears that Ibn ʿUyaynah would narrate it from him on one occasion and from Ibn Judʿān on another. The former, however, would include Jābir in the chain of transmission, or hesitate as to whether it was Jābir or Anas. The hadith is in fact the hadith of Anas, as is supported by Aḥmad’s narration (3/203) through another route: Yazīd ibn Hārūn related to us: Ḥammād ibn Salamah informed us, from Thābit, from Anas, tracing it back to the Prophet, with this wording.