Third: the narration of ʿAlī ibn ʿĀbis, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sulaymān, and Muḥammad ibn Rabīʿah al-Kilābī, as reported by al-Dāraquṭnī. Thus, these are five narrators, most of whose trustworthiness is agreed upon, and all of whom explicitly stated that ʿAbd Allah ibn Mawhab heard it from Tamīm. Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamzah differed from them by inserting Qabīṣah between the two.

The matter, then, does not go beyond what Ibn al-Turkumānī said: “If the matter is as Abū Nuʿaym and Wakīʿ related, it is understood to mean that he heard from him both through an intermediary and directly. But if it is established that he neither heard from him nor lived to meet him, then the intermediary—Qabīṣah—is trustworthy and undoubtedly lived in Tamīm’s time; thus, his unqualified ‘from’ transmission is presumed to be continuous. I therefore do not know what al-Bayhaqī meant by saying: ‘With the mention of Qabīṣah, the hadith reverted to being mursal.’”

In sum, declaring Tamīm’s hadith defective on account of a break in its chain is not compelling. In my view, it is more appropriate and more evident to regard it as defective on account of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUmar, because of the criticism of him to which reference has already been made. Perhaps that is the reason for this discrepancy in its chain of transmission. Nevertheless, its status does not fall below that of a corroborating report for the first chain from Ibn Abī Umāmah. Accordingly, the hadith is, at the very least, a good hadith, as Ibn al-Qayyim explicitly stated in Tahdhīb al-Sunan (4/186).

Abū Zurʿah al-Dimashqī had preceded him in this judgment, saying: “This is a good hadith with a continuous chain. I have not seen anyone among the scholars reject it.” Thus it appears in Ibn Ḥajar’s Tahdhīb. And Allah knows best.

Further supporting the narration of the group from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUmar is the fact that Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī corroborated him, narrating from ʿAbd Allah ibn Mawhab, from Tamīm al-Dārī. Al-Ṭabarānī (1274), al-Ḥākim, and al-Bayhaqī narrated it through the route of Abū Bakr al-Ḥanafī, who said: Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq narrated to us from his father, with this report. Al-Ḥākim said: