Now that this has become clear, I do not know whether this shaykh, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿIrq, was another teacher of al-Ṭabarānī, or whether his name is a corruption of that of his teacher in the two hadiths mentioned above: Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥārith.
Whichever of the two may be the case, I have found no biographical notice for either of them. Thus, al-Haythamī’s statement, “The chain of transmission in al-Kabīr is good except ...,” was either made without taking this shaykh into account, or out of a favorable assumption concerning him—as we have found to be the case in many of al-Ṭabarānī’s hadiths. And Allah knows best.
As for its chain of transmission in al-Awsaṭ, al-Ṭabarānī included it under the biographical notice of Aḥmad ibn al-Naḍr al-ʿAskarī, where he said, no. 1644 in my numbering: “Aḥmad narrated to us; he said: Muḥammad ibn Salām al-Manbijī narrated to us; he said: Saʿīd narrated to us from Ḥabīb ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Ṭāʾī,” relating it with the same chain. It contains the additional wording.
I have not been able to identify this Saʿīd, and al-Mizzī did not list him among those who narrated from Ḥabīb al-Ṭāʾī.
Muḥammad ibn Salām al-Manbijī is not a well-known narrator. I have found no prominent scholar who gave him a biographical notice apart from al-Dhahabī in al-Mīzān and al-Ḍuʿafāʾ, and in both he said no more than:
“Ibn Mandah said: ‘He has unusual reports.’”
His biographical notice was omitted from al-Lisān.
Al-Samʿānī mentioned him under the entry al-Manbijī, saying:
“The people of his town narrate remarkable reports from him. He narrated from ʿUmar ibn Saʿīd al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Manbijī a seriously garbled recension, the description of which would take too long. It is not permissible to cite him as proof or to narrate from him, except merely for purposes of identification.”
This is an important observation absent from the books specifically devoted to the biographies of narrators. And Allah is the Granter of success.
As for al-Ṭabarānī’s teacher, Aḥmad ibn al-Naḍr al-ʿAskarī, al-Khaṭīb gave his biography (5/185–186) and declared him trustworthy.
In sum, the chain of transmission in al-Kabīr is better than this one. And Allah knows best.
- p. 300, Hadith 1722