Hishām, from Muḥammad, from Abū Hurayrah, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, who said—and then he cited it. He said: “We know of no one who narrated it from Hishām other than Muḥammad and ʿAwn ibn ʿUmārah; and ʿAwn is weak in hadith.”

I say: This is a weak chain of transmission. Concerning Jamīl ibn al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥāfiẓ said: “Truthful, but prone to error; ʿAbdān was excessive in his criticism of him.” His shaykh, Muḥammad ibn Marwān—al-ʿUqaylī—is of similar standing. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said: “Truthful, but has errors.” The narrator corroborating them, ʿAwn ibn ʿUmārah, is weak.

Abū Usāmah differed from them, narrating it from Hishām as attributed to the Companion Abū Hurayrah. Ibn Abī Shaybah reported it in al-Muṣannaf (11/77/10561). Abū Usāmah was Ḥammād ibn Usāmah: he was trustworthy, but practised tadlīs.

I say: I have also found a corroborating report attributed to a Companion. Al-Dārimī said in his Sunan (2/128): Al-Ḥakam ibn al-Mubārak informed us; al-Walīd informed us; Jābir narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Qays informed me; one of the Prophet’s Companions informed me—and then he cited it. This is how it appears, attributed to a Companion, in the Syrian copy, as well as in its Indian original (p. 275). However, in its margin is the variant: “From the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, who said.”

Moreover, this chain of transmission is problematic, for I have not identified this Jābir or his shaykh, Muḥammad ibn Qays. It is possible that the copyist omitted the word “ibn,” and that the correct wording is: “Ibn Jābir narrated to us”—namely, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd ibn Jābir al-Shāmī al-Dārānī. For he was one of the shaykhs of al-Walīd, namely al-Walīd ibn Muslim of Damascus, who was himself one of the shaykhs of al-Ḥakam ibn al-Mubārak. As for Muḥammad ibn Qays, nothing has become clear to me about him at present, except that it seems likely that he was Muḥammad ibn Qays al-Madanī, the storyteller of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Abū Ibrāhīm. And Allah knows best.