Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Mandah narrated it in al-Tawḥīd (123/2), and al-Aṣbahānī, through him, in al-Targhīb (739): Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Yūsuf informed us; Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣaghānī informed us; Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī informed us; Abū Muʿāwiyah Muḥammad ibn Khāzim informed us, from al-Aʿmash, from Ibrāhīm al-Taymī, from al-Ḥārith ibn Suwayd, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, attributed to the Prophet. I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission. This Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb is Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣamm, a trustworthy hadith master, and the rest of its narrators are trustworthy narrators of Muslim. Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī is Ibn al-Aṣbahānī, nicknamed Ḥamdān; yet they did not mention in his biographical notice that he was an Anṣārī. Allah knows best.

Al-Bayhaqī also transmitted the hadith in al-Shuʿab (1/359—Hind), through al-Ḥākim from Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣamm. Al-Nasāʾī narrated it in ʿAmal al-Yawm wa al-Laylah (849) through another route from Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd, with the same wording.

2599 — “A man may have a rank with Allah which he does not attain through any deed, so Allah continues to test him with what he dislikes until He brings him to it.”

Abū Yaʿlā transmitted it in al-Musnad (4/1447–1448), and Ibn Ḥibbān, from him, in (693—Mawārid): Abū Kurayb narrated to us; Yūnus ibn Bukayr informed us; Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb informed us; Abū Zurʿah informed us; Abū Hurayrah said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: … He then cited it.

Then Abū Yaʿlā said (4/1449): ʿUqbah narrated to us; Yūnus informed us of it with the same chain.