with the same wording, except that he reported it as attributed to Abū Saʿīd rather than to the Prophet. Al-Ḥākim recorded it. ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Mubārak corroborated him, narrating it from Sufyān as a report attributed to the Companion. Al-Nasāʾī recorded it. He then recorded it through Ghundar, from Shuʿbah, with the same chain, as a report attributed to the Companion. There is no doubt that the Companion-attributed version has the sounder chain of transmission. However, al-Ḥāfiẓ said (1): “Such a statement is not made on the basis of personal opinion; it therefore has the ruling of a report attributed to the Prophet.”

I then found a corroborating report for the hadith. Ibn Bishrān said in al-Amālī (147/1): Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir al-ʿAlawī informed us in Medina: Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Naṣr al-Baghdādī, known as al-Maqdisī, narrated to us: Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān al-Azraq narrated to us: Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ narrated to us from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, from ʿĀʾishah, as a Prophetic narration, with the same wording.

I say: Al-Azraq was trustworthy and is biographed in al-Tahdhīb; those above him in the chain are among the narrators of both al-Bukhārī and Muslim. I have not identified al-Maqdisī, nor have I found him in Tārīkh Baghdād, though he ought to have been included in it. Nor have I identified al-ʿAlawī. In summary, the hadith is authentic on account of its combined chains attributed to the Prophet. The Companion-attributed version does not contradict this, since such a statement cannot be made merely on the basis of personal opinion, as al-Ḥāfiẓ stated above.

Perhaps for this reason Ibn al-Qayyim cited it in Zād al-Maʿād (1/69) as an established fact. However, he attributed it to Sunan al-Nasāʾī, which was an error that the commentator on the work failed to notice. The commentator then fell egregiously short in documenting it, attributing it only to Ibn al-Sunnī and declaring its chain weak—which it is, as noted above, unlike the chains preceding it—thus giving the impression that the hadith is weak. Allah’s help is sought.