I say: This is a good chain of transmission, or close to good. Its narrators are trustworthy, and none of them has been criticized apart from al-Bukhārī’s shaykh, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUthmān. Ibn Ḥibbān mentioned him in al-Thiqāt (8/347), as he also mentioned those above him in the chain; but regarding this shaykh he said: “His hadith is to be considered if it is narrated from him by narrators other than the weak.”

This is how it appears there: “from him”! But in al-ʿAsqalānī’s Tahdhīb, quoting from al-Thiqāt, it reads: “from.” This is perhaps more correct, since it is Ibn Ḥibbān’s customary wording concerning a narrator such as this.

In any case, this hadith is acceptable, because his shaykh, Ḥujr ibn al-Ḥārith, is trustworthy. The one who narrated from him was Imam al-Bukhārī, who included him in al-Tārīkh without declaring him weak. As for Abū Ḥātim, he said: “Sound.” Al-Dhahabī said in al-Kāshif: “He is not of that caliber.”

Yet what strengthens this hadith is that it has two other routes:

The first is narrated by Abū al-Asʿad—or Abū al-Aswad—one of the descendants of Bishr ibn ʿAqrabah al-Juhanī, who resided in Ascalon, in Ramla, in the village of Ṭūr, from his father, from his grandfather, from Bishr ibn ʿAqrabah al-Juhanī, who said:

“I met the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, on the day of Uḥud, and I said, ‘What happened to my father?’ He replied, ‘He was martyred; may Allah have mercy on him.’ I wept, so he took me, stroked my head, and carried me with him, and said: ...” Then he mentioned it.