Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Sarī al-ʿAsqalānī, who said: Rushdayn ibn Saʿd informed us, from Zuhrah ibn Maʿbad, from Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḥubulī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, who said: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said to a man ... then he mentioned it. He said: “It is not narrated from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, except through this chain of transmission. Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Sarī was alone in narrating it.”

I say: He is Muḥammad ibn al-Mutawakkil ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Hāshimī, their client, al-ʿAsqalānī, known as Ibn Abī al-Sarī. The hadith master al-Dhahabī said: “A hadith master deemed trustworthy, though Abū Ḥātim considered him somewhat weak.” The hadith master al-ʿAsqalānī said in al-Taqrīb: “Truthful and knowledgeable, but he made many errors.” I say: A narrator such as him may be cited as corroborating evidence. The same is true of his teacher, Rushdayn ibn Saʿd, on whose account the hadith master al-ʿIrāqī declared it defective. He said in Takhrīj al-Iḥyāʾ (4/84): “The majority declared him weak because of his poor retention.”

His student al-Haythamī followed him, saying in al-Majmaʿ (8/46): “Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in al-Awsaṭ, and its chain includes Rushdayn ibn Saʿd, who is weak.” Yet elsewhere (10/140) he said: “Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it, and its chain of transmission is good!” This is what he said, but it calls for scrutiny in two respects. The first is that he attributed it unqualifiedly to al-Ṭabarānī, meaning that it is in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, whereas in