That is what he said! Strangely, al-Dhahabī said in his Talkhīṣ:

“Authentic!”

Yet this conflicts with his having included it in al-Mughnī, where he said:

“Aḥmad and others said: ‘His hadiths are rejected.’ Ibn Maʿīn deemed him reliable, while al-Dāraquṭnī declared him abandoned.”

I say: His hadiths bear out Aḥmad’s judgment of him. Among them is the hadith:

“Remember Allah abundantly, until they say, ‘He is mad.’”

It is cited in al-Ḍaʿīfah, no. 517.

I say: This hadith, too, is rejected, since it contradicts all the hadiths on this subject in its wording, “Say them abundantly,” and in its additional closing words, “There is no might ...”

Note: Ibn Ḥibbān alone, among all the compilers of the sources mentioned, did not include in the hadith the phrase, “the religious creed.”

I then found in al-Musnad (4/267–268), through a man from the Anṣār, of the family of al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr, from al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr, attributed to the Prophet, with the wording:

“Indeed, ‘Subḥān Allāh’ (Glory be to Allah) ... are the enduring righteous deeds.”

Its narrators are trustworthy, apart from the unnamed man.

In sum, the hadith is authentic through its corroborating reports, and it is clearer in meaning than they are, since it accords with the correct exegesis of Allah’s saying:

“The enduring righteous deeds are better with your Lord in reward and better in hope.” [al-Kahf 18:46]

For Ibn Jarīr mentioned several opinions in his exegesis of it.