ibn Ishaq said: Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn al-Harith told me, from ʿAtaʾ ibn Yasar, from Jabir ibn ʿAbd Allah, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say: … and he then cited it.

I say: This is a good chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy narrators of the Two Sahihs, apart from Muhammad ibn Ishaq, the author of al-Sirah. He practised tadlis, but in Yazid ibn Zurayʿ’s narration from him, he explicitly stated that he had heard it. Yazid was a trustworthy and precise narrator. This is a point of benefit that I had not come across when I documented the passage concerning going out in the fourth volume of this series (1518). There, I documented it through a number of routes, including that of al-Hakim, who declared it authentic, and al-Dhahabi concurred with him.

Remarkably, the annotator of Musnad Abi Yaʿla—who declared this chain authentic—had not noticed Ibn Ishaq’s explicit transmission in another place where Abu Yaʿla narrated it from him under no. (2221), with an ambiguous transmission formula. The aforementioned annotator therefore deemed it defective on account of that ambiguous formula. He ought to have pointed out his other narration, which follows in the Musnad and explicitly states the transmission. But exalted is He who never forgets.

The second part of the hadith has other routes from Jabir, some of which are found in the Two Sahihs. I have documented them in al-Irwaʾ (1/80–81); whoever wishes may consult them.

The first sentence of it is supported by a corroborating report from Abu Hurayrah, traced back to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, with the wording:

“When you hear a donkey braying, a dog barking, or a rooster crowing at night, seek Allah’s protection from the evil of Satan, for they see what you do not see.”

Abu Yaʿla transmitted it in his Musnad (11/187/6296), and Ibn al-Sunni (307) transmitted it from him, through Yahya ibn Abi Sulayman, from Saʿd ibn Ibrahim, from al-Aʿraj, from him.

I say: Its narrators are trustworthy, apart from this Yahya, who is weak. Indeed, al-Bukhari said: “His hadith is rejected.”