The wording recorded by al-Ḥākim and others is: “He did not raise his head, as though he had already heard it from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.” Al-Ḥākim said: “Authentic according to the criteria of al-Bukhārī and Muslim,” and al-Dhahabī agreed with him.

I say: This is one of their errors, for neither Ismāʿīl ibn Rajāʾ nor his father was cited by al-Bukhārī. Thus, it meets the criteria of Muslim alone. Conversely, al-Haythamī says in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (9/133–134): “Aḥmad narrated it, and its narrators are those of the authentic collections, apart from Fiṭr ibn Khalīfah, who is trustworthy.” I say: In a chain of this kind, al-Haythamī customarily states without exception, “Its narrators are those of the authentic collections,” since this Fiṭr is among al-Bukhārī’s narrators—although al-Dāraquṭnī said of him: “Al-Bukhārī did not rely upon him.” Al-Khazrajī and others explicitly stated that al-Bukhārī narrates from him only together with another narrator. Yet he has been supported by corroboration, as I indicated at the beginning of the source-documentation by saying, “...through several routes.” Thus, the hadith is undoubtedly authentic.

Note: The Shiite ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn made an astonishing muddle in documenting this hadith in his al-Murājaʿāt (p. 180). After attributing it to al-Ḥākim and Aḥmad, he said: “It was also narrated by al-Bayhaqī in Shuʿab al-Īmān, by Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr in his Sunan, by Abū Nuʿaym in his Ḥilyah, and by Abū Yaʿlā in al-Sunan, no. 2585, on p. 155 of volume 6 of al-Kanz.” I say: This demonstrates his profound ignorance of the hadith books and his lack of careful verification. For, in al-Kanz to which he referred, the hadith is marked with abbreviations denoting Aḥmad, Abū Nuʿaym, and al-Bayhaqī; al-Ḥākim, Abū Yaʿlā, and Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr. There is a scribal corruption in the abbreviations for al-Bayhaqī and Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr; the correct abbreviations are those for Ibn Ḥibbān and al-Ḍiyāʾ, as found in al-Suyūṭī’s al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr (1/223/2). On the basis of that corruption, which the Shiite failed to notice, he made that baseless attribution: “al-Bayhaqī in Shuʿab al-Īmān and Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr in his Sunan.”