I have come across its strong mursal corroborating report in the Musannaf of Ibn Abi Shaybah. He said (6/568/2064): Yahya ibn Abi Za’idah narrated to us from Abd al-Malik, from Ata, who said: “We have been informed that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said,” and he then cited it.

I say: This is a sound mursal report; all its narrators are trustworthy and among Muslim’s narrators. Abd al-Malik is Ibn Abi Sulayman al-Arzami, one of the leading imams; and Ata is Ibn Abi Rabah, the eminent Successor, who narrated abundantly from Ibn Abbas, Jabir, Ibn Umar, and other Companions of the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him. It is therefore among the strongest mursal reports cited as corroborative evidence by all scholars, hadith specialists and jurists alike, as has been explained in its proper place.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said in Ibtal al-Tahlil (p. 30): “A mursal report is suitable for corroboration, by the consensus of the jurists.” This is why Imam al-Bukhari cited the hadith without its chain in his Sahih in a definitive form, saying (4/451): “The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said: ‘Muslims are bound by their conditions.’” Al-Hafiz traced it in al-Fath to some of those previously mentioned. Likewise, Ibn Abd al-Barr in al-Tamhid (7/117), and Ibn al-Qayyim in al-Ighathah (2/21 and 55), definitively attributed it to the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him. Al-Nawawi graded Abu Hurayrah’s chain as good in al-Majmu (9/376); Ibn Daqiq al-Id strengthened it in al-Ilmam (906 and 907); and al-Shawkani graded it good in Nayl al-Awtar (5/216).

Now that you know this, the man called Hassan Abd al-Mannan, in his annotations on Ibn al-Qayyim’s Ighathat al-Lahfan, has departed from all these imams and from the strength the hadith derives from the totality of its chains—especially its sound mursal chain—and categorically declared it weak, with no concern that he was opposing the way of the believers. He said (2/21): “A weak hadith, which al-Bukhari cited without a chain in his Sahih (4/451)!”