I say: Its chain of transmission is good, and all its narrators are trustworthy. Were it not for the criticism concerning the memory of ʿArim—whose name was Muhammad ibn al-Fadl al-Sadusi, the teacher of al-Tabarani’s teacher, ʿAli ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Baghawi—I would have declared it authentic. Al-Hafiz said of him: “Trustworthy and firmly reliable; his memory changed in the latter part of his life.”

As for his grading of Taysalah as “acceptable,” that is itself unacceptable; rather, he was trustworthy, as Ibn Maʿin stated in what Ibn Abi Hatim narrated from him (2/1/501). This is also among the material which Ibn Shahin related from Yahya—that is, Ibn Maʿin—in his al-Thiqat, and which al-Mizzi cited from him in his Tahdhib (13/467). Yet, despite all this, al-Hafiz did not mention it in Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, perhaps because he was occupied with refuting al-Mizzi for distinguishing between this Taysalah ibn ʿAli al-Hudhali—whom a number of trustworthy narrators narrated from, though not including Ziyad ibn Mikhraq—and Taysalah ibn Miyas al-Sulami, who is also said to have been al-Hudhali. Ziyad mentioned above narrated from the latter, as did Yahya ibn Abi Kathir, who was also among those who narrated from the former.

Al-Hafiz inferred from this and other evidence that the correct view is that they were one and the same person. He related this from more than one hadith master, and supported it with a report recorded by al-Bukhari in al-Adab al-Mufrad (no. 8) through the aforementioned Ziyad ibn Mikhraq, who said: “Taysalah ibn Miyas narrated to me from Ibn ʿUmar.” Ayyub ibn ʿUtbah corroborated him, saying: “Taysalah ibn ʿAli narrated to me: I came to Ibn ʿUmar…” and then cited it. However, he explicitly attributed the nine major sins to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. It was recorded by al-Baghawi in Musnad Ibn al-Jaʿd (2/1150/3426), al-Kharaʾiti in Masawiʾ al-Akhlaq (118/247), al-Khatib in al-Kifayah (p. 105), and al-Bayhaqi in al-Sunan (3/409), through his routes of transmission from him.