Abu Zurʿah and Ibn ʿAdi said of him: “There is nothing objectionable about him.” Ibn Hibban listed him among the trustworthy narrators (7/174).

I say: A narrator of this standing narrates good hadiths so long as he does not contradict others. Here, however, he has conflated this authentic hadith with another hadith concerning ʿUmar’s entering upon the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—while he was lying on a bed woven with straps … the hadith. It is found in the two Sahih collections, narrated from Ibn ʿAbbas from ʿUmar, in the lengthy hadith about the two women who banded together against him—peace and blessings be upon him—and it has been cited in al-Taʿliq al-Raghib (4/114). Al-Hilali was thus mistaken: he linked this incident involving ʿUmar to the account of the finger, treating them as a single incident and giving the impression that the injury was so severe that he was carried to the bed …!

Ibn ʿAdi (5/52–53) also narrated the account of ʿUmar alone, through this same al-Hilali, from al-Aswad, from Jundub:

“ʿUmar entered upon the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—while he was lying upon a woven mat …” the hadith.

This is what is correct: the incident involving ʿUmar has no connection to the hadith under discussion.

Israʾil—son of Yunus ibn Abi Ishaq al-Sabiʿi—contradicted all those trustworthy narrators, stating: from al-Aswad ibn Qays, from Jundub, who said:

“When Abu Bakr—may Allah be pleased with him—set out with the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—for the cave, Abu Bakr said to him, ‘Do not enter the cave, O Messenger of Allah, until I have checked it.’ So Abu Bakr entered the cave, and something injured his hands. He began wiping the blood from his finger, saying, ‘You are but a finger …’ and so on.”