Al-Bazzar said:

“We know of no one who narrated it from Thabit other than Suwwar. He was not strong, although many scholars narrated from him.”

I say: He is of middling rank, and his hadith is good provided that he does not contradict others. This is the approach scholars have followed after the hadith masters. The hadith master alluded to this when he described him as:

“Truthful, though prone to errors.”

Al-Dhahabi said in al-Mughni:

“Acceptable in hadith.”

See the assessments of the hadith masters in Sahih Abi Dawud (510).

Al-Haythami said in his documentation of the hadith:

“Al-Bazzar narrated it, and it includes Suwwar ibn Dawud Abu Hamzah, whom Ahmad, Ibn Hibban, and Ibn Maʿin declared trustworthy, though he has some weakness. The rest of its transmitters are those of the Sahih.”

Al-Azami quoted this in his annotation to al-Bazzar, but omitted the words: “though he has some weakness ...” and so on.

In their place, he printed: “and others; and Abd Allah ibn Ahmad is trustworthy and reliable”!!

This occurred in al-Haythami’s discussion of another hadith immediately following this one, so the matter became confused for Shaykh al-Azami; hence this clarification is necessary.

Further strengthening this hadith of al-Miqdad is what Abd Allah ibn Awn narrated from Umayr ibn Ishaq, from al-Miqdad, who said: