I say: Its chain is good, and all of its narrators are trustworthy transmitters cited by Muslim, apart from al-Ṭabarānī’s teacher, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Baghawī, who was a trustworthy hadith master. Ibrāhīm is Ibrāhīm ibn Yazīd al-Nakhaʿī.

Someone may say: “It is mursal, interrupted between Ibrāhīm and Ibn Masʿūd; so how can you grade its chain as good?” I reply: Yes, but a number of leading scholars regarded his mursal reports as authentic. Al-Bayhaqī restricted this to the reports he narrated mursal from Ibn Masʿūd, as cited in al-Tahdhīb. Al-Bayhaqī’s view is correct, in light of al-Aʿmash’s statement: “I said to Ibrāhīm, ‘Give me a chain from Ibn Masʿūd.’ Ibrāhīm replied, ‘When I narrate to you, “from a man, from ʿAbd Allah,” that man is the one from whom I heard it; but when I say, “ʿAbd Allah said,” it is from more than one person, from ʿAbd Allah.’”

This explicitly establishes that, when he narrates mursal from Ibn Masʿūd, there is more than one person between him and Ibn Masʿūd. Although they are unknown, their anonymity is excused: on the one hand, they constitute a group; and on the other, they are from among the Successors—perhaps even among their senior generation. This is another point which I have mentioned elsewhere, though I cannot now recall where.

Further corroboration for this incident involving Ibn Masʿūd and Ubayy ibn Kaʿb is that it has also been narrated in the hadiths of Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allah and Ibn ʿAbbās, may Allah be pleased with them.

1. As for the hadith of Jābir, Abū Yaʿlā recorded it in his Musnad (2/497–498), from whom Ibn Ḥibbān (577) and al-Ṭabarānī in al-Awsaṭ (1/252/2) also narrated it, through Yaʿqūb al-Qummī, from ʿĪsā ibn Jāriyah, from Jābir, with similar wording. Al-Mundhirī (1/258) said: “Abū Yaʿlā narrated it with a good chain, and Ibn Ḥibbān included it in his Ṣaḥīḥ.” I say: Its chain can reasonably be graded good, despite the well-known criticism of ʿĪsā ibn Jāriyah and Yaʿqūb ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Qummī.

2. As for the hadith of Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn Khuzaymah recorded it in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1809) with a chain of transmission