It was also recorded by al-Bayhaqi.

Its chain is sound. All its narrators are well-known and trustworthy, apart from Sahl ibn Ziyad. Al-Dhahabi mentioned him in al-Mizan and said: “They did not declare him weak, and he has a biographical entry in Tarikh al-Islam.” I say: Ibn Hibban likewise declared him trustworthy (8/291), and a number of trustworthy narrators related from him, as I have explained in Taysir Intifa al-Khillan. He is therefore truthful and may be relied upon as evidence. Perhaps this is why the two hadith masters, Ibn Kathir and Ibn Hajar, made no comment on his chain. Thus, no attention should be paid to what is mentioned in Lisan al-Mizan: that al-Azdi said of him, “Rejected in hadith.”

Strangely, although the Najdi Shaykh referred to above explicitly stated that its chain is authentic, and supplied biographical notices for the narrators after Sahl ibn Ziyad up to al-Bayhaqi’s Shaykh, he did not discuss Sahl at all. Yet Sahl was more deserving of such discussion than the others whose biographies he gave, in light of what I mentioned above in Sahl’s biographical notice: namely, that none but Ibn Hibban had declared him trustworthy. A narrator uniquely declared trustworthy by Ibn Hibban is generally unknown; however, I have explained that he ceased to be unknown because those trustworthy narrators related from him. For this reason, he was more deserving of a biographical notice and of clarification of his status than the narrators whose biographies he supplied! I later came across al-Bazzar’s and others’ declarations that he was trustworthy, and added this to al-Taysir. The chain is therefore authentic.

The third route is from Sahl ibn Aslam al-Adawi, from Yazid—though the original reads: Zayd—ibn Abi Mansur, from his father, from Abu Hurayrah, in similar terms. I say: Abu Nuaym recorded it in al-Dala'il (p. 372), as did al-Bayhaqi, through two routes from Sahl ibn Aslam. He is trustworthy, as Abu Dawud al-Tayalisi said, and Yazid ibn Abi Mansur is likewise.