ibn Husayn ibn [sic] Jaʿfar, and Abu Isḥāq ibn Yasār, narrated to me from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khabbāb—the client of Banū ʿAdī ibn al-Najjār—from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, who related it. I say: This is a good chain of transmission, in which Ibn Isḥāq explicitly stated that he heard it directly. He narrated it from two shaykhs: one was his father, Isḥāq ibn Yasār; and the other was Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn—al-Ḥusayn being the son of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib—who was a trustworthy and eminent man, known by the kunyah Abū Jaʿfar. It therefore appears that the kunyah particle Abū was corrupted in the chain of transmission into ibn. (1)

Al-Ḥāfiẓ did not comment on it in al-Fatḥ (10/25), which indicates that he regarded it as strengthened. Al-Haythamī said in al-Majmaʿ (4/26): “Aḥmad transmitted it, and its narrators are trustworthy.” Abū Jaʿfar and his fellow narrator, Isḥāq ibn Yasār, were corroborated by Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd—the Anṣārī judge—who reported from al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, from Ibn Khabbāb, that is, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khabbāb, that Abū Saʿīd Mālik al-Khudrī, may Allah be pleased with him, returned from a journey. In another version, al-Qāsim reported that Ibn Khabbāb told him that he heard Abū Saʿīd relate that he had been away and then returned ... a similar hadith in abridged form, without the story of the woman. Al-Bukhārī recorded it (3997 and 5568)—the other version is also his—as did al-Nasāʾī (2/208–209) and al-Bayhaqī (9/292).

Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd (2) also has another chain of transmission for it. He said: Saʿd ibn Isḥāq narrated to us: Zaynab bint Kaʿb narrated to me from Abū Saʿīd: