I say: Rather, both chains are composed of narrators of the Sahih collections.

Fourth: Muslim ibn Khalid al-Zanji: Ibn Khuthaym narrated it to me through the same chain. Ibn Hibban transmitted it in his Sahih (8/148/6468—al-Ihsan).

The hadith under discussion has a supporting report from Salama ibn al-Akwaʿ concerning the expedition of Hunayn, which includes: “When they pressed in upon the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, he dismounted from the mule, took a handful of dust from the ground, and faced them with it, saying, ‘May the faces be disfigured!’ There was not a single man among them whose eyes Allah did not fill with dust from that handful, and they turned and fled ...” Muslim (5/169) and Ibn Hibban (6486) transmitted it with a good chain of transmission.

There is another supporting report from Abu ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Fihri concerning the same incident. Ahmad (5/286), al-Bazzar (2/350/1833), al-Tayalisi (195/1371), al-Darimi (2/219–220), and al-Dulabi (1/42) transmitted it through Hammad ibn Salama, who said: Yaʿla ibn ʿAta informed me, from Abu Hammam ʿAbd Allah ibn Yasar, from him. This Abu Hammam is unknown, as stated in al-Taqrib. Ibn Hibban alone departed from this judgment and included him in al-Thiqat (5/51). Through al-Tayalisi’s route, it was also transmitted by al-Bayhaqi in al-Dalaʾil (5/141) and by al-Tabarani in al-Kabir (22/288–289).

It is a good hadith on account of corroborating evidence, as I established in Sahih Zawaʾid al-Bazzar. Abu Dawud also transmitted it (5233), but did not cite it in full, so it does not contain the relevant portion of the supporting evidence. He said: “It is a notable hadith, brought by Hammad ibn Salama.”