Ibn ʿAsākir also narrated it (4/147/2) by way of Abū Yaʿlā: Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Adhraʿī narrated to us, with the same chain; and by way of Aḥmad: Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Isrāʾīl narrated to us, with the same chain. I say: It appears in al-Musnad (5/391), where Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad narrated it with the same chain in a more complete version. Aḥmad (5/404) and al-Ḥākim (1/312–313) then narrated it in abbreviated form through Zayd ibn al-Ḥubāb, with the same chain, but it does not contain the hadith under discussion. Al-Ḥākim’s version is extremely abridged, containing only the prayer between Maghrib and ʿIshāʾ. Ibn Khuzaymah likewise narrated it in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1194) by this route. Al-Mundhirī attributed it in al-Targhīb (1/205) to al-Nasāʾī, with a good chain of transmission.

He attributed it to al-Nasāʾī without qualification, whereas al-Nasāʾī actually recorded it only in al-Sunan al-Kubrā, in the section on virtues (5/80–81). Al-Ḥākim said: “Authentic according to the criteria of al-Bukhārī and Muslim.” Al-Dhahabī concurred with him, but this was an error on both their parts, for Maysarah ibn Ḥabīb was not among the narrators used by either of them, though he was trustworthy. Al-Tirmidhī also narrated the hadith in the section on virtues (9/338/3783), through another route from Isrāʾīl, like the version in al-Musnad from Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad; Ibn Naṣr narrated a shorter version in Night Prayer (p. 33).

Al-Tirmidhī said: “A good, singular hadith; we know it only through the hadith of Isrāʾīl.” I say: He is Isrāʾīl ibn Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī. He was trustworthy, though he was criticized without justification, as stated in al-Taqrīb. Thus, the chain of transmission is authentic.

2586 — “I looked into Paradise and saw that most of its inhabitants were poor people; and I looked into Hell and saw that most of its inhabitants were women.”

Muslim (8/88), al-Tirmidhī (2605), and Aḥmad (1/224) narrated it through