I say: This is a good chain of transmission. Usd ibn Kurz—with an initial u vowel—was a well-known Companion, whose biography appears in al-Isabah and other works.

All the narrators below him are reliable and have biographies in al-Tahdhib and elsewhere, except Muhasir ibn Habib al-Zubaydi. He was the brother of Damrah ibn Habib al-Zubaydi al-Shami. Abu Hatim said: “He is acceptable.”

Ibn Hibban included him among the Followers of the Successors in al-Thiqat (7/525–526). He also mentioned him among the Successors in the same work (5/454), saying:

“He narrated from a number of the Companions, and the people of al-Sham narrated from him. He died in 128 AH.”

He also mentioned him in this same category (5/427), but his name was likewise corrupted by some transmitters, both early and late. He wrote:

“Muhajir ibn Habib al-Zubaydi: he narrated from Usd ibn Kurz, who was a Companion, and Artaʾah ibn al-Mundhir narrated from him. I fear that he may be Muhasir ibn Habib al-Zubaydi.”

I say: What he feared did in fact occur, even in this very place in his own book; yet its editor did not notice it, and commented:

“He is mentioned in al-Isabah under the biography of his shaykh, Usd ibn Kurz.”

There, in al-Isabah, al-Hafiz cited this hadith of ours from al-Bukhari’s al-Tarikh, al-Tabarani, and Ibn al-Sakan, through Artaʾah, and so on. There it appears as “Muhajir ibn Habib,” and he then said: