There are three chains of transmission from him:

The first: from Ṭāwūs, from Abū Hurayrah.

It was recorded by al-Bukhārī and Muslim, as well as others. Their versions contain the third additional wording, namely the chain referred to at the end of the hadith.

The second: from Hammām, from him.

It was likewise recorded by both of them and by others. Muslim’s wording is followed here, as it is the more complete.

The third: from ʿAmmār ibn Abī ʿAmmār, who said: “I heard Abū Hurayrah say …”

It was recorded by Aḥmad and Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī in al-Tārīkh (1/224), and its chain of transmission is authentic. This is the chain referred to at the beginning of the hadith, and it contains all the additional wordings except the third.

I had previously traced these chains in Ẓilāl al-Jannah (1/266–267), without citing their texts. Ibn Ḥibbān also recorded the first two in his Ṣaḥīḥ (6190 and 6191), and Abū ʿAwānah recorded the second of them (1/187–188).

Know that this exceedingly authentic hadith has been rejected, both in the past and in modern times, by some innovators with diseased hearts—let alone heretics. Throughout the ages, the scholars have answered them with what is healing and sufficient for anyone who wishes to safeguard his religion and creed, such as Ibn Khuzaymah, Ibn Ḥibbān, al-Bayhaqī, al-Baghawī, al-Nawawī, al-ʿAsqalānī, and others.

Among contemporary figures who have rejected it is Shaykh al-Ghazālī, in his book al-Sunnah … mentioned in the preceding hadith. Indeed, he even disparaged those who defended the hadith, saying (p. 29): “It is a frivolous defense that cannot be accepted!”