I say: This is a good chain of transmission: its narrators are trustworthy and are among Muslim’s narrators. However, Muslim transmitted Muhammad ibn Amr only in corroborating reports; Hammad ibn Salamah has some weakness in his narrations from narrators other than Thabit al-Bunani; and Muslim does not record any narration of Hammad from Muhammad ibn Amr—namely, Muhammad ibn Amr ibn Alqamah ibn Waqqas al-Laythi.

Hammad was contradicted in both its chain of transmission and its text. Ibn Khuzaymah said in al-Tawhid (p. 81): Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Qata'i narrated to us: Ziyad ibn al-Rabi' narrated to us: Muhammad ibn Amr ibn Alqamah narrated to us, from Abu Salamah, from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him):

Muhammad ibn al-Sharid came with a very dark black slave-girl to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and said: “O Messenger of Allah, my mother had bound herself to free a believing slave. Would it suffice if I emancipated this one?” The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, asked the slave-girl: “Who is your Lord?”

She raised her head and said: “In heaven ...” Then he mentioned the rest of the hadith similarly.

This chain is more authentic, for Ziyad ibn al-Rabi' is trustworthy and is among al-Bukhari’s narrators. Yet it appears that the mention of “Muhammad ibn al-Sharid” is an error by some of the narrators, for he has no mention among the Companions. Al-Hafiz included him in the fourth section of al-Isabah, on the authority of Ibn Mandah, Ibn al-Sakan, al-Bawardi, and Ibn Shahin; but his version reads: “Muhammad ibn al-Sharid—or al-Sharid—came with a slave-girl,” expressed thus with uncertainty. Abu Nu'aym likewise related it through Ibrahim ibn Harb al-Askari, from al-Qata'i—the original text reads al-Qutay'i—with the same wording, except that he said: “Amr ibn al-Sharid came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him ...” He deemed this route correct. Yet none of this is reliably preserved. What is preserved is what Abu Dawud and al-Nasa'i recorded, and Ibn Hibban authenticated, from