It was recorded by Ibn Khuzaymah in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1938), Ibn Ḥibbān (2782), Aḥmad (4/127) and in Faḍāʾil al-Ṣaḥābah (1748), al-Bazzār (2723), al-Fasawī in al-Tārīkh (2/345), al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah in his compilation (61/122), al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (18/251/628), Ibn ʿAdī in al-Kāmil (6/406), and, among the manuscripts, Abū al-Qāsim al-Kattānī in a portion of his hadith collection (fol. 4/2), also in Majlis al-Biṭāqah (fol. 188/1), Ibn Bishrān in al-Amālī (fol. 14/1), Ibn Ḥamṣah in Juzʾ al-Biṭāqah (fol. 70/2), Abū Ṭāhir al-Anbārī in his Mashyakha (fol. 149/1), Ibn ʿAsākir in Tārīkh Dimashq (16/682 and 683), and Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī in a portion of al-Amālī (fol. 1/2)—all of them through Yūnus, with this chain.

I say: This chain is good as corroborative evidence. Its narrators are trustworthy, apart from al-Ḥārith ibn Ziyād, who is unknown: no one besides Ibn Ḥibbān declared him trustworthy, and no transmitter other than this Yūnus is known to have narrated from him. Therefore, al-Ḥāfiẓ’s statement concerning him—“weak in hadith”—is off the mark.

Moreover, it is clear that Ibn Khuzaymah’s inclusion of his hadith in his Ṣaḥīḥ means that he regarded him as trustworthy. However, Ibn Khuzaymah is known to have been lenient in authenticating hadiths and declaring narrators trustworthy, just like his student Ibn Ḥibbān. At the very least, then, he is suitable to be cited as corroborative evidence. This is the position to which those who deemed this hadith strong were inclined, as will follow.

Despite this, Ibn Ḥibbān’s aforementioned declaration of him as trustworthy escaped al-Haythamī, who said in Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (9/356):