“And their narrators are trustworthy.”

I say: Yes, but it has three defects:

First: al-Muṭṭalib ibn Ḥanṭab’s use of the ambiguous “from” formula, for he frequently practised concealment in transmission.

Second: the disagreement over whether Quhayd ibn Muṭarrif was a Companion. When Ibn Ḥibbān mentioned him among the Companions in his book al-Thiqāt (The Trustworthy Narrators), he said (3/348):

“It is said that he was a Companion.”

Others said the same. This is why Ibn Ḥibbān mentioned him again among the trustworthy Successors (5/326).

Al-Ḥāfiẓ did not mention in al-Iṣābah, or elsewhere, anything indicating that he was a Companion apart from this hadith. He reported the disagreement concerning it and explained it in al-Tahdhīb in the manner to be mentioned below. Yet none of this establishes that he was a Companion. For this reason, al-Bukhārī declared it mursal, as stated above, thereby indicating that he considered it more likely that Quhayd was not a Companion.

Third: al-Muṭṭalib ibn Ḥanṭab was contradicted in his chain of transmission by his freedman, ʿAmr ibn Abī ʿAmr, who said: from Fuhayd ibn Muṭarrif, from Abū Hurayrah … Thus, he added Abū Hurayrah to the chain and made it connected.

Al-Bukhārī also narrated it through his teacher Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Uways: “Ibn Wahb narrated to me, from Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sālim, from ʿAmr, the freedman of al-Muṭṭalib.”

I say: This is a sound chain. Its narrators are trustworthy narrators used by Muslim, apart from Fuhayd, who is trustworthy, as stated above.

There is some criticism of Ismāʿīl, but it is not detrimental, particularly since he was corroborated. Al-Layth ibn Saʿd narrated it from