Although Zam‘ah ibn Salih was weak, he was not severely weak, as al-Dhahabi indicated in al-Kashif when he said:

“Ahmad declared him weak, while Muslim paired him with another narrator.”

Indeed, he said in al-Mughni:

“He is acceptable in hadith. Ahmad and Abu Hatim declared him weak, whereas Ibn Ma‘in declared him trustworthy.”

Dear reader, be aware that more than thirty years ago, in the first volume of al-Da‘ifah, no. 118, I had documented this hadith of Jabir through Ibn Wahb’s narration from Zam‘ah, from Abu al-Zubayr, from Jabir, with the chain employing the ambiguous ‘from’ formula; it also contains the story. When we began reprinting this volume and, while correcting its proofs, I reached this hadith, I recalled that I had documented something similar in al-Irwa’, which I wrote approximately fifteen years after al-Da‘ifah. There I found the hadith of Abdullah ibn Ukaym through two routes from him, in two wordings: one with the wording cited in the heading, and the other similar to it, except that it states: “…with any hide or sinew.”

There I had inclined to authenticate its chain, and I explicitly stated that the chain of the first version was authentic. I then feared that this authentication might involve some error, so I reconsidered it more extensively—as you can see—than I had there. Its authenticity was thus confirmed to me, and I became even more convinced of it, praise be to Allah. Accordingly, I considered it incumbent upon me to alert the esteemed readers that, through the corroboration of Ibn Ukaym’s hadith, this hadith has become authentic by virtue of supporting evidence; I have therefore transferred it here. Allah is the Granter of success, and He guides to the straightest path.

I wish to draw attention here to two matters:

First: the commentator on Sharh al-Sunnah (2/99) had deemed the hadith defective on account of inconsistency in its transmissions, disregarding my response to this in al-Irwa’ (1/79). He later retracted that in