“Acceptable.” His son Khubayb is unknown, and Jaʿfar ibn Saʿd ibn Samurah is not strong. Sulaymān ibn Mūsā Abū Dāwūd al-Kūfī al-Khurāsānī has some weakness. From this, one may recognize al-Manāwī’s error in his statement in al-Taysīr: “Its chain of transmission is good”—despite the fact that, in al-Fayḍ, he challenged al-Suyūṭī’s indication that it was good on account of the weakness of this Sulaymān.

I say: Yet it has another route that lends it strength. Al-Ḥākim recorded it (2/141–142) from Isḥāq ibn Idrīs: Hammām narrated to us from Qatādah, from al-Ḥasan, from Samurah, traced back to the Prophet, with the wording: “Do not reside with the polytheists or intermingle with them. Whoever resides with them or intermingles with them is not of us.” He said: “Authentic according to al-Bukhārī’s criteria.” Al-Dhahabī agreed with him, except that he added: “And Muslim’s.” I do not know whether this addition was made by him or by one of the copyists of his book, al-Talkhīṣ. In either case, their declaring it authentic was a grave error, for this Isḥāq ibn Idrīs was not among the narrators of the two Shaykhs, nor was he trustworthy. Rather, he was accused of fabricating hadith. Al-Dhahabī himself included him in al-Mīzān and said: “Ibn al-Madīnī abandoned him. Abū Zurʿah said: ‘Very weak.’ Al-Bukhārī said: ‘People abandoned him.’ Al-Dāraquṭnī said: ‘Rejected in hadith.’ Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn said: ‘A liar who fabricates hadith.’”

However, I found a strong supporting narration for it: Isḥāq ibn Sayyār relates it: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik narrated to us from Hammām, through the same chain.