Ibn al-Qaṭṭān then said:

“There is no authentication here of the hadith of Abū Saʿīd, whose defects we have just finished discussing. Rather, he means that both reports from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr are authentic, and he is correct in this. It is authentically established from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr that he said: from Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from Jābir; and that he said: from ʿIyāḍ—or [Hilāl ibn ʿIyāḍ, from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī. Ibn al-Sakan cannot possibly authenticate the hadith of Abū Saʿīd] (1) at all. Were he to do so, [that would be an erroneous statement; rather, what is authentic is the hadith of Jābir] (1). Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Thawbān is trustworthy, and it has been established that he heard from Jābir, as we have previously explained. Miskīn ibn Bukayr, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḥadhdhāʾ, is unobjectionable; Ibn Maʿīn said this. This expression itself indicates that, in his view, when he says of a man, ‘There is no harm in him,’ that man is trustworthy. Abū Ḥātim said the same of him.

Al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Shuʿayb, Abū Muslim, was truthful and unobjectionable.

None of the remaining narrators in the chain, including Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, is open to question.”

I say: The conclusion of Ibn al-Qaṭṭān’s investigation is that the hadith through this route is good. This is what he explicitly stated before citing its chain, after discussing at length the route of ʿIkrimah ibn ʿAmmār, from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, from Hilāl ibn ʿIyāḍ—or, in one narration, ʿIyāḍ ibn Abī Zuhayr—from Abū Saʿīd. He deemed it defective because of inconsistency in its chain and text, and because this ʿIyāḍ is unknown. For this reason, I had included it in Ḍaʿīf Abī Dāwūd under no. (3), and discussed it at length.