—and he then cited it. Al-Ḥākim said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic, and ʿAlī ibn Ḥafṣ al-Madāʾinī is trustworthy.” In the original, it reads “Jaʿfar,” which is an error. Al-Dhahabī concurred with him, and they were correct.

Muslim also transmitted it through two other routes from Shuʿbah with the same chain, except that he said, “a lie,” in place of “a sin.” From this, one may see that Abū Dāwūd’s subsequent statement—“No one narrated it with a continuous chain to the Prophet except this shaykh, meaning ʿAlī ibn Ḥafṣ al-Madāʾinī”—applies only to the routes known to him; otherwise, the other two routes disprove it. The possibility that he intended specifically the wording “a sin” is very remote, since the difference between the two wordings is merely verbal, as is evident. The second wording has a supporting report which will be cited shortly.

The hadith also has another route with Ibn al-Mubārak in al-Zuhd (735): Yaḥyā ibn ʿUbayd Allāh informed us; he said: I heard my father say: I heard Abū Hurayrah say—and he then cited it.

I say: This is a weak chain of transmission.

The supporting report was transmitted by al-Quḍāʿī in Musnad al-Shihāb (1415), through Hilāl ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, who said: My father, al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Hilāl, narrated to us; Hilāl ibn ʿUmar informed us; ʿUmar ibn Hilāl informed me, from Abū Ghālib, from Abū Umāmah, attributed to the Prophet, with the wording: “It is enough of a lie for a man to relate everything he hears.”

I say: This is a weak chain of transmission. Concerning Hilāl ibn ʿUmar—the man from Raqqah, and the grandfather of Hilāl ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, who appears below him in the chain—Ibn Abī Ḥātim (4/2/78) related from his father: “He is weak in hadith.”