Such was his statement. It contains two points:

First, his categorical declaration that al-Dālānī was trustworthy—yet you have already seen the problem with that.

Second, he overlooked the fact that the other route, narrated through the two Ḥarrānī narrators, is more authentic than al-Dālānī’s route, as is clear from what we have mentioned. It is this route whose authenticity al-Mundhirī affirmed and which Ibn al-Qayyim deemed good. I do not know why he did not declare it authentic, especially since al-Ṭabarānī himself recorded it immediately after his narration from al-Dālānī.

Abū Ṭaybah differed from them in the chain of transmission of both routes. He said: from Kurz ibn Wabrah, from Nuʿaym ibn Abī Hind, from Abū ʿUbaydah ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, from him, at length, with the wording:

“People will stand before the Lord of the worlds for forty years, their eyes fixed in stare.” The hadith continues, and it contains the second wording found in the route of al-Dālānī and the Ḥarrānīs.

Al-Sahmī recorded it in full in Tārīkh Jurjān (350–354), and al-Ṭabarānī (9764) recorded it immediately after the hadith of Ibn Abī Anīsah, though he cited only a brief portion from its beginning. Ibn ʿAdī likewise recorded it in al-Kāmil (5/258), in the biographical notice of Abū Ṭaybah—whose name was ʿĪsā ibn Sulaymān al-Jurjānī. Al-Ṭabarānī said afterward:

“Then he mentioned something similar to the hadith of Zayd ibn Abī Anīsah.”

I say: Ibn ʿAdī said concerning this Abū Ṭaybah—after citing this hadith of his along with other hadiths:

“All these hadiths are not preserved. Abū Ṭaybah was a righteous man, and I do not think that he deliberately lied; rather, perhaps matters became confused for him and he thus erred.”