Al-Ḥākim also transmitted it (1/344) through Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār: Yūnus ibn Bukayr narrated it to us with this chain. He said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic.” Al-Dhahabī rebutted him, saying: “I say: Yaḥyā and Aḥmad are weak, and Yūnus is not a reliable authority.”

I say: The truth is that this Yūnus is of middling standing; his hadith may be used as evidence at the level of good. Al-Dhahabī himself explicitly stated this at the end of his biographical entry in al-Mīzān, saying: “Muslim narrated reports from Yūnus as corroboration, not as primary evidence; likewise, al-Bukhārī mentioned him as corroboration. His hadith is good.” Thus, declaring the hadith defective on his account is untenable.

The same applies to Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb al-Bujaylī: the majority declared him trustworthy, while Ibn Maʿīn was inconsistent concerning him—declaring him trustworthy on one occasion and weak on another. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said: “There is no harm in him.” As for Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār, he was corroborated by Abū Yaʿlā’s two shaykhs, Abū Kurayb—whose name was Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAlāʾ—and ʿUqbah, namely Ibn Makram al-Baṣrī. Both were trustworthy shaykhs of Muslim. Thus, the chain is good, and it is authentic in light of the following corroborating reports:

The first is from Muḥammad ibn Khālid al-Sulamī, from his father, from his grandfather—who had been a Companion—that he set out to visit one of his brothers, and then learned of his illness. He said: So he entered upon him and said, “I have come to you as a visitor, one paying a sick call, and a bearer of glad tidings!” He said, “How have you combined all of this?” He replied, “I set out intending to visit you, then I learned of your illness, and so it became a sick visit. And I bring you glad tidings of something I heard from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), who said: ‘If Allah has decreed for a servant a rank which he has not attained through his deeds, Allah tests him in his body, his wealth, or his child; then He grants him patience until He brings him to the rank which He had decreed for him.’”