“We were sitting with the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, while Amr ibn al-As had gone to put on his clothes in order to catch up with me. Then, while we were with him, he said: …” He then mentioned the hadith. “By Allah, I remained apprehensive, watching those coming in and going out, until so-and-so entered: al-Hakam ibn Abi al-As.”

The additional wording is from al-Bazzar, who said:

“We know of no report with this wording from anyone other than Abd Allah ibn Amr through this chain of transmission.”

I say: Its chain of transmission is authentic according to Muslim’s criteria. Al-Haythami said (5/241):

“Ahmad, al-Bazzar, and al-Tabarani in al-Awsat narrated it, and Ahmad’s narrators are the narrators of the Sahih.”

It has two strong corroborating reports, which al-Bazzar cited. One is through al-Shabi, who said: “I heard Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr say—while reclining against the Kaabah—‘By the Lord of this House! Allah cursed al-Hakam and his offspring through the tongue of His Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.’”

Al-Bazzar said:

“We know of no report from Ibn al-Zubayr except through this chain of transmission.”

I say: Its chain of transmission is likewise authentic. All its narrators are trustworthy narrators of al-Bukhari and Muslim, apart from al-Bazzar’s teacher, Ahmad ibn Mansur ibn Sayyar, who is trustworthy. Nor was he alone in narrating it, as is indicated by the rest of al-Bazzar’s statement:

“Muhammad ibn Fudayl also narrated it from Ismail, from al-Shabi, from Ibn al-Zubayr.”

Therefore, al-Hafiz al-Dhahabi—with the reservation I shall mention—had no choice but to state explicitly in Tarikh al-Islam (2/57):