“…they are the fiercest fighters in the great battles.”

Al-Ḥākim said:

“An authentic hadith according to Muslim’s criteria.”

Al-Dhahabī made no comment on it. Perhaps al-Ḥākim included it as a supplement to Muslim only because Muslim did not cite it in full, but cited only the passage concerning the great battles and referred the rest to an earlier hadith narrated by Abū Zurʿah, who said: Abū Hurayrah said … and then mentioned the hadith in full, with similar wording. In that passage, he said:

“They are the strongest members of my Ummah against the Dajjāl.”

Al-Bukhārī likewise recorded it (2543 and 4366), as did Abū Yaʿlā in his Musnad (10/493/6108), and through his route al-Bayhaqī (7/11).

Aḥmad also recorded it (2/390) in abbreviated form, with the wording:

“This is the charity livestock of my people, and they are the strongest people against the Dajjāl”—meaning, Banū Tamīm.

Abū Hurayrah said: “No living tribe was more detested by me than they were, but I came to love them after hearing the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say this.”

The hadith under discussion has two supporting narrations:

One is the hadith of Ibn ʿUmar, with a good chain, which al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar graded authentic in Mukhtaṣar al-Zawāʾid (2/382).

The other is the hadith of Ibn Masʿūd, with a weak chain.

Al-Bazzār narrated them both, and both are cited in the other book (5731). *