It was recorded by al-Hakim (3/317), al-Bazzar (3/248/6677), and al-Tabarani in al-Mu‘jam al-Kabir (19/28/59). Al-Hakim said, “Its chain of transmission is authentic,” and al-Dhahabi concurred.

I say: al-Bazzar’s chain meets Muslim’s criteria. He said, “We know of no one other than Sahl who narrated it from Shu‘bah.” That is what he said! Yet al-Tayalisi also narrated it in his Musnad (145/1077): “Shu‘bah narrated to us, from Mu‘awiyah ibn Qurrah, that Ibn Mas‘ud …,” the hadith.

This is how it appears there: he did not say, “from his father.” Either this was omitted by the copyist or the printer, or this is how the report came to him. The first possibility is more likely, because he included it in Qurrah’s Musnad and mentioned there several hadiths narrated by Mu‘awiyah ibn Qurrah from his father. One of them meets al-Tirmidhi’s criteria, and I have authenticated it; it is cited in Fada’il al-Sham (no. 5).

Moreover, had the report reached him without the words “from his father,” the hadith would have been mursal. In that case, it would not have been appropriate for him to include it in the Musnad. And Allah knows best.

According to what I consider more likely: if Qurrah received it directly from Ibn Mas‘ud, then this constitutes a second route from him; otherwise, it is a mursal report of a Companion, and the mursal reports of the Companions are evidence.

It has a third route, but it is very weak, because it is narrated by al-Mu‘alla ibn ‘Urfan—who is abandoned in hadith—from Abu Wa’il, from Abdullah, with similar wording.

It was recorded by al-Tabarani (8453).

There is also a fourth route, with a good chain of transmission, from Sarah, daughter of Abdullah ibn Mas‘ud, who said that her father told her: