but Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī differed from him, reporting (1247, in its arrangement): “Shuʿbah narrated to us, from Abū Isḥāq, from al-Barāʾ.” This is how he reported it, omitting Abū ʿUbaydah and the other man from the chain of transmission. I do not know whether this is how the report occurred in al-Ṭayālisī’s version, or whether this was omitted by a copyist of his Musnad. In either case, Ibn Jaʿfar’s narration is more sound.

The fifth: Yūnus ibn ʿAmr corroborated him, reporting from his father, from Abū ʿUbaydah ibn ʿAbd Allāh. However, he said: “My father said,” and then mentioned it, thus making it part of the reports with a continuous chain to his father, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd. Abū al-Shaykh transmitted it through Abū Yaʿlā, and it appears in the latter’s Musnad (1682), from Yūnus ibn ʿAmr, who said: “My father said: al-Barāʾ related to me”—omitting the intermediaries between him and al-Barāʾ—with wording like Sufyān’s and Zāʾidah’s narration. Ibn Ḥibbān also transmitted it in this manner through Abū Yaʿlā (2350), and its chain is good. He then transmitted it (2351) through Abū al-Aḥwaṣ, from Abū Isḥāq...

I say: This represents considerable discrepancy in the reports from Abū Isḥāq. Most likely, it originated with him himself, because his memory became confused. Yet Sufyān and Shuʿbah narrated from him before that confusion; thus, their narrations are more sound. Of their two narrations, Sufyān’s is the weightier, for a group corroborated him in it, among them Yūnus ibn Abū Isḥāq, who explicitly stated in his narration that his father, ʿAmr, heard it from al-Barāʾ. The chain of transmission is therefore connected, and the hadith is authentic. All praise is due to Allah.

It also has a corroborating report through Sawāʾ, from Ḥafṣah, the wife of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, attributed to the Prophet. Abū Dāwūd (5045) and al-Nasāʾī (761) transmitted it, and its chain is good. Ibn al-Sunnī did likewise (733, 734, and 337). There is another report with the same meaning from Ḥudhayfah.