—a gross one. The correct name, as you have learned, is ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abzā. He was a young Companion, like Maḥmūd ibn Labīd, whose hadith al-Haddām weakened (2/214) on the grounds that it was mursal! Yet here you see him authenticate this hadith of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān! Thus, you see that he applies a double standard and weighs with two different scales. Allah is the One whose help is sought, and there is no power or strength except through Allah.

2990 — “Three things are all unlawful gain: the earnings of a cupper, the payment of a prostitute, and the price of a dog—except for a hunting dog.”

Al-Dāraquṭnī transmitted it (3/72) through Muḥammad ibn Muṣʿab al-Qarqasānī: Nāfiʿ ibn ʿUmar informed us, from al-Walīd ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Abī Rabāḥ, from his uncle ʿAṭāʾ, from Abū Hurayrah, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. He said: “Al-Walīd ibn ʿUbayd Allāh is weak.”

I say: Al-Bayhaqī said the same in al-Sunan (6/6), after citing it in suspended form. Muḥammad ibn Muṣʿab al-Qarqasānī was truthful but prone to many errors, as stated in al-Taqrīb. Yet I consider—and Allah knows best—that the hadith is authentic on account of its various chains and corroborating reports, except for the clause of exception, which is good and may itself prove authentic for the same reason. So let us examine this.

As for the first part, it has another chain: Qays ibn Saʿd narrated it from ʿAṭāʾ, from the same source, in similar wording but without the exception. Its wording has preceded under hadith (2971). Ibn Ḥibbān transmitted it (1118) with a good chain. Al-Ḥajjāj likewise narrated it from ʿAṭāʾ in similar wording. Aḥmad transmitted it (2/500) through a chain whose narrators are trustworthy and are narrators of the two Ṣaḥīḥs, apart from al-Ḥajjāj. He is Ibn Arṭāh; he is trustworthy, but practised tadlīs and narrated it using an ambiguous “from” formulation.