chains from Ibn Wahb: Ibn Wahb narrated to us: Sulayman ibn Bilal, from Suhayl ibn Abi Salih, from his father, from Abu Hurayrah—may Allah be pleased with him—who said: … Then he cited it. Al-Hakim said: “Authentic according to Muslim’s criteria.” Al-Dhahabi concurred.

I say: It is only authentic, because its narrator from Ibn Wahb in his chain, al-Rabiʿ ibn Sulayman, is not among Muslim’s narrators. He added two phrases: the first, “and His blessing,” after the words, “in praise of Allah.” This is also found in Abu Dawud. The other occurs at the end of the hadith: “He would say this three times, raising his voice as he did so.” I say: Both are anomalous, as they do not occur in most of the aforementioned chains from Ibn Wahb. Sufficient proof of this is that the compilers of the two Sahihs—Muslim and Ibn Hibban—omitted them, as did Ibn Khuzaymah. In his Sahih, he transmitted it through two chains: by the aforementioned route of Ibn Wahb, and by the route of Abdullah ibn Amir, from Suhayl ibn Abi Salih, with the same chain. He then clarified that the two additions are not in Ibn Wahb’s route, but rather in Abdullah ibn Amir’s route. He then said: “Abdullah ibn Amir does not meet our criteria for this book. I have only included this from Sulayman ibn Bilal, from Suhayl ibn Abi Salih; so write this beside it.”

I say: That is, he received the hadith in this manner through Abdullah ibn Amir, conjoined with the narration of Sulayman ibn Bilal, and so he included it in the Sahih in conjunction with it. But he is not a proof; rather, the proof is Sulayman. Abdullah ibn Amir was a weak Medinan narrator.

Notes: The martyred hadith master Ibn Ammar identified a defect in the hadith in his book Hidden Defects in the Hadiths of Sahih Muslim. After declaring Abdullah ibn Amir weak, he said (pp. 128–129):