Al-Suyūṭī said in Sharḥ al-Ṣudūr (p. 38): “Its chain is authentic!” Its first half is corroborated by a report attributed to the Companion, through Thawr ibn Yazīd, from Abū Ruhm al-Samʿī, from Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī, who said:

“When the soul of a servant is taken, the people of mercy among Allah’s servants receive it as people in this world receive a bearer of glad tidings. They come forward to ask him, but some of them say to the others, ‘Leave your brother until he has rested, for he was in distress.’ Then they come to him and ask, ‘What happened to so-and-so? What happened to so-and-so woman? Did she marry?’ If they ask about a man who died before him, he says to them, ‘He has perished.’ They say, ‘To Allah we belong, and to Him we shall return. He has been taken to his mother, the Abyss—what an evil mother and what an evil nurse!’”

He said: “Their deeds are then shown to them. If they see something good, they rejoice and receive glad tidings, saying, ‘This is Your blessing upon Your servant, so complete it for him.’ But if they see something evil, they say, ‘O Allah, take Your servant back.’”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak transmitted it in al-Zuhd (443). I say: Its narrators are trustworthy, but its chain is interrupted between Thawr ibn Yazīd and Abū Ruhm. Salām al-Ṭawīl, however, narrated it with a connected chain and attributed it to the Prophet, saying: from Thawr, from Khālid ibn Maʿdān—that is, from Abū Ruhm—who attributed it to the Prophet. Ibn Ṣāʿid transmitted it in the supplementary material to al-Zuhd (444), but this Salām is abandoned.

Ibn al-Qayyim mentioned it in al-Rūḥ (p. 20) through Muʿāwiyah ibn Yaḥyā, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salamah, who said that Abū Ruhm al-Samʿī told him that Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī told him that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: … He then cited it without giving its source.

In Sharḥ al-Ṣudūr, al-Suyūṭī attributed it to Ibn Abī al-Dunyā and al-Ṭabarānī’s al-Awsaṭ, but made no comment on it. Muʿāwiyah ibn Yaḥyā is weak. Al-Suyūṭī then cited, from the narration of Ādam ibn Abī Iyās in his exegesis: al-Mubārak ibn Fuḍālah narrated to us, from al-Ḥasan, attributing it to the Prophet: