Al-Zabīdī likewise endorsed this in his commentary on al-Iḥyāʾ (7/270), just as al-Mundhirī, in al-Targhīb (2/173), endorsed Ibn Ḥibbān’s declaring it authentic. Al-Ḥāfiẓ also deemed it strong, though he indicated that it contained a hidden defect which was not discrediting. In the biographical notice on Sabrah in al-Iṣābah, he said: “Al-Nasāʾī recorded a hadith of his with a good chain of transmission, except that there is a discrepancy in its chain of transmission.”

I say: This is an outweighed discrepancy that has no effect. Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Mizzī referred to it in Sabrah’s biographical notice in al-Tahdhīb: he cited it through Aḥmad and then said, “Muḥammad ibn Fuḍayl corroborated him from Mūsā ibn al-Musayyab. Ṭāriq ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz also transmitted it from Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, from Mūsā ibn al-Musayyab, from Sālim ibn Abī al-Jaʿd, from Jābir ibn Abī Sabrah, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.” He mentioned something similar in Tuḥfat al-Ashrāf (3/264).

I have just stated that this discrepancy has no effect, because Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān cannot be set against the two trustworthy narrators, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAqīl and Muḥammad ibn Fuḍayl’s corroborating report—especially since Ibn ʿAjlān is subject to well-known criticism. This would be so even if the conflicting version attributed to him were authentic, for the one who narrated it from him, Ṭāriq ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, is likewise subject to criticism. He is Ṭāriq ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Ṭāriq al-Rabaʿī, as his lineage is given in al-Jarḥ; and its author reports his father as saying: “I found nothing objectionable in his hadith, insofar as I have seen of his hadith.” In al-Thiqāt (8/327), he traces his lineage to his grandfather, calling him “Ṭāriq ibn Ṭāriq al-Makkī,” and says: “He would at times contradict the firmly established authorities in their transmissions.” The same is stated in Ibn Quṭlūbughā’s Tartīb al-Thiqāt (1/303/2) and in Lisān