Second: the man is known, but scholars differ concerning him. Abu Zur'ah said: “There is no problem with him.” Ibn Hibban listed him in al-Thiqat, as mentioned above, but contradicted himself by also including him in al-Du'afa' (1/301), where he said: “He alone narrates things that do not resemble the hadiths of reliable narrators. It is not permissible to cite him as evidence except when corroborated.” Hence al-Hafiz said in al-Taqrib: “Truthful, but prone to errors.”

Third: al-Haythami also contradicted himself concerning him. We have just seen that he declared all the narrators in its chain trustworthy without exception; yet elsewhere (2/178) I found him saying: “Al-Tabarani narrated it in al-Awsat, and its chain includes Abd Allah ibn Zurayq—thus written. Al-Azdi said: His hadith is not sound.” The annotator of al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (1/50 and 52) followed him in this, as is his habit, for the man has no knowledge of this discipline. Everything with which he has burdened the margins and annotations is merely copied material—something no student of knowledge is incapable of doing! It appears to me that, after al-Haythami cited this statement from al-Azdi, he realized what had been established above: that Abd Allah ibn Ruzayq was in fact Ruzayq Abu Abd Allah. On that basis, he declared its narrators trustworthy, since Abu Zur'ah and Ibn Hibban had graded him trustworthy. Perhaps he did not notice Ibn Hibban's inconsistency regarding him. And Allah knows best.

Fourth: the correct wording in the text of the hadith is “while reclining,” for two reasons. First, this is how it appears in the manuscript of al-Awsat previously referred to. Second, it appears likewise in Ibn Hibban's al-Du'afa' and in al-Suyuti's al-Jami' al-Kabir,