by anyone, dear reader, who has no knowledge of the hadith of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, whatever his distinction or standing may be in fields other than this noble discipline.

Al-Suyuti included the hadith in al-Jami al-Kabir (2736 and 7222), reporting it from Ahmad and al-Khatib, on the authority of a Companion. He left it ungraded, without indicating its degree of authenticity, as was generally his practice. The committee responsible for publishing and commenting on it did likewise! At the very least, it should have appended al-Haythami’s statement in Majma al-Zawa'id (7/343): “Ahmad narrated it, and its narrators are among those of the Sahih collections.” Yet this does not itself inform the reader that the chain of transmission is authentic, as we have pointed out repeatedly. It should also have noted that al-Haythami cited a corroborating report, likewise narrated by Ahmad and al-Tabarani from Hisham ibn Amir, attributed to the Prophet with similar wording. Regarding Ahmad’s narrators, he said: “They are among the narrators of the Sahih collections.”

It appears in Majma al-Zawa'id (4/20) through Abd al-Razzaq, and is found in al-Musannaf (11/395/20828), where he said: Ma'mar informed us, from Ayyub, from Abu Qilabah, from Hisham ibn Amir, with similar wording. This too is an authentic chain of transmission. It has supplied us with the name of the Companion who was not named in the first chain; and if this identification has been reliably preserved in it, it provides us with another benefit: namely, that Abu Qilabah heard from Hisham ibn Amir, contrary to the view of those who maintained that he did not hear from him. And Allah knows best.

Note: Among the errors of certain people who rush to compile hadith indexes, despite having no knowledge of this noble discipline, is their listing the Companion narrator of the hadith under this entry as: