This is undoubtedly more authentic as a mursal report, though al-Muhājir’s status is unknown. However, it has also been transmitted from Abu Hurayrah with a continuous chain through another route, which is better than this one, for Abu al-Asbāṭ al-Ḥārithī—whose name was Bishr ibn Rāfiʿ—is weak. Al-Ṭabarānī also transmitted it through him, as will be mentioned shortly, Allah Most High willing.
The other route is as follows: al-Bazzār said in his Musnad (2/160/1421, Kashf al-Astār): Zakariyyā ibn Yaḥyā narrated to us; Shabābah narrated to us; al-Mughīrah ibn Muslim narrated to us, from Hishām, from Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, from him, from Abu Hurayrah, with wording like that of the hadith cited in the heading, but without the clause concerning tapping. This is a good chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy and are included among the narrators of al-Tahdhīb, apart from Zakariyyā ibn Yaḥyā. He was Ibn Ayyūb, Abu ʿAlī al-Ḍarīr, and is biographed in Tārīkh Baghdād (8/457), with reports from a group of trustworthy hadith masters besides al-Bazzār. Hadith critics therefore accept the narrations of one of his standing, particularly for supporting and corroborative reports. Perhaps this is why al-Haythamī said in al-Majmaʿ (4/278): “It was narrated by al-Bazzār, and its narrators are trustworthy.” Al-Ḥāfiẓ endorsed this in Mukhtaṣar Zawāʾid Musnad al-Bazzār (1/575/1019).
- As for the hadith of Ibn ʿAbbās, it too has two routes. The first is narrated by Abu al-Asbāṭ, from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, from ʿIkrimah, from him. Al-Ṭabarānī transmitted it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (11/355/11999) through Yaḥyā al-Ḥammānī: Ḥātim ibn Ismāʿīl narrated to us from him. Al-Haythamī said (4/278): “Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it, and it contains Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Ḥammānī, who has been declared trustworthy, though there is weakness in him.” I say: Hishām ibn Bahrām corroborated him, and al-Bayhaqī regarded him as trustworthy in the previously cited hadith of Abu Hurayrah—the first route. The only defect in this chain is the weakness of this Abu al-Asbāṭ, as noted there previously.