Then he – namely Muslim – and al-Bukhārī also included it in their Ṣaḥīḥ ⦗6 / 154-156; 9 / 193 with the commentary of Fatḥ al-Bārī⦘ through the chain of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak from Maʿmar, with the same isnād.

Third route: al-Ṭaḥāwī said ⦗2 / 10-11⦘:
“Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Sālim al-Ṣāʿigh related to us; ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn Maysarah – meaning al-Qawārīrī – related to us; Muʿādh ibn Hishām related to us from his father, from Qatādah, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, from Abū Hurayrah, with the same wording as the second narration, and it contains most of the additions that we placed between brackets ( ).”

This chain is sound; all its transmitters are trustworthy men whose narrations appear in the two Ṣaḥīḥs, except for this Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl.

Ibn Abī Ḥātim said ⦗3 / 2 / 190⦘: “I heard him in Mecca, and he is truthful.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ ⦗6 / 155⦘ likewise attributed this route to al-Nasāʾī, Abū ʿAwānah and Ibn Ḥibbān.

Fourth route: al-Ḥākim produced it ⦗2 / 129⦘ through Mubārak ibn Faḍālah, from ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, from Saʿīd al-Maqburī, from Abū Hurayrah, with the same wording as the second narration, and he added at the end:

“Kab said: ‘Allah and His Messenger have spoken the truth; by Allah, it is exactly so in the Book of Allah’ – meaning in the Torah. He then asked, ‘O Abū Hurayrah, did the Prophet ﷺ tell you which prophet it was?’ He replied, ‘No.’ Kab said, ‘It was Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn. And did he tell you which town it was?’ He replied, ‘No.’ Kab said, ‘It is the city of Ariḥā (Jericho).’”

Al-Ḥākim commented, “A singular authentic ḥadīth,” and al-Dhahabī concurred.

Such was their verdict, yet Mubārak ibn Faḍālah was a narrator who practised tadlīs and here he reports with an ʿanʿana, so the isnād is not authentic – indeed, not even ḥasan. Al-Bazzār also transmitted it by this route, as cited in Ibn Kathīr’s al-Bidāyah wa-l-Nihāyah ⦗1 / 324⦘.

Moreover, this route contains a manifest flaw found in that additional wording, for in it he names