I say: Its chain of transmission is authentic, and its narrators are trustworthy. Al-Tirmidhī said: “A good, authentic hadith.” Al-Ḥākim said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic,” and al-Dhahabī agreed with him. It has been criticized on account of a discontinuity in its chain, but I have answered this objection in al-Irwāʾ (7/42).

It has a second chain, transmitted by Ibn Mājah (2/321) through Muḥammad ibn Ḥarb, who said: My mother narrated to me from her mother that she heard al-Miqdām ibn Maʿdī Karib relate the same report. Muḥammad ibn Ḥarb’s mother and grandmother are unknown.

A third chain is recorded by Ibn Ḥibbān (1348), from Ṣāliḥ ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Miqdām ibn Maʿdī Karib—who is weak—from his father—whose reliability is unestablished—from his grandfather, al-Miqdām, with the same report. A fourth chain is recorded by al-Ṭabarānī (662), from Ḥassān ibn Ḥassān, from Ḥurayz ibn ʿUthmān, from Ḥabīb ibn ʿUbayd, from al-Miqdām, in an abridged form. This Ḥassān is weak.

Note: The first, authentic chain of this hadith has been omitted from al-Iḥsān bi-Tartīb Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān, by Amīr ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn. In contrast, the third, weak chain is included there as no. 5213, even though both chains are found in Mawārid al-Ẓamʾān, as was previously indicated by their respective numbers. I do not know whether this omission was made by its arranger, its copyist, or its printer. If it was the first, was it deliberate on his part or inadvertent? If it was deliberate, was it due to a method he adopted in arranging it—one feature of which was the removal of repeated reports—or was it an inadvertent error? If it was the former—and this is what I find unlikely—then two objections arise against it. The first is that, in this case, we cannot regard al-Iḥsān as a substitute for its original, Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān.