Muslim related to us; Abdullah ibn Zayd related to us; Abdullah ibn Amir al-Yahsibi told me: I heard Wathilah ibn al-Asqaʿ relate it.

I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy, and each explicitly states having received the report. Mudar ibn Muhammad al-Asadi was declared trustworthy by al-Khatib (13/268–269). With this unbroken sequence of explicit transmissions, it is a rare and valuable report. Ibn Abi Asim (1482) and al-Tabarani also recorded it through two other routes from al-Walid ibn Muslim, but without al-Yahsibi explicitly stating that he heard it.

Zayd and al-Walid were corroborated by Ibrahim ibn Abdullah ibn al-Ala ibn Zayd, who said: My father related it to me, in abridged form.

Al-Tabarani recorded it in al-Kabir and Musnad al-Shamiyyin (1/452–453), and Abu Nuʿaym narrated it from him in al-Maʿrifah (1/4/1).

As for this Ibrahim, Abu Hatim narrated from him but made no comment concerning him (2/109/319), while Ibn Hibban included him in al-Thiqat (8/66). Al-Nasaʾi, however, said: “He is not trustworthy!” This does not harm the report, for he is corroborated. Hence al-Haythami said (10/20):

“Al-Tabarani narrated it through several routes, and the narrators of one of them are narrators of the Sahih.”

Al-Hafiz al-Alaʾi mentioned it in … Those Established to Have Had the Noble Companionship (70/15), through the narration of al-Walid ibn Muslim with the aforementioned chain, expressed merely through successive “from” links, without attributing it to any source. He said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic.”

In his source documentation, its editor, Dr. Abd al-Rahim al-Qashqari, did no more than reproduce the statement of al-Haythami cited above! *