He is therefore of middling standing. Al-Dhahabi alluded to this in al-Kashif, saying:

“Ibn Maʿin deemed him trustworthy, while al-Nasaʾi said: ‘He is not strong.’”

The hadith of such a narrator is accepted unless his error becomes evident.

He was corroborated in a manner that is of no benefit: Musa ibn ʿUthman al-Hadrami narrated it, in abbreviated form, from al-Aʿmash, from Abu Salih, from Abu Hurayrah.

Al-Bazzar recorded it in his Musnad (3/227/2629—Kashf al-Astar) and said:

“We know of no one who narrated it from al-Aʿmash, from Abu Salih, from Abu Hurayrah, other than Musa. Rather, it is known only through the hadith of Kamil, from Abu Salih.”

He then cited his chain of transmission to him. Regarding this Musa, Abu Hatim said:

“He is abandoned.”

For this reason, al-Haythami said in al-Majmaʿ (9/181):

“Ahmad and al-Bazzar narrated it in abbreviated form, and he said: ‘On a dark night.’ The narrators in Ahmad’s chain are trustworthy.”

Abu Nuʿaym also recorded it through this Musa ibn ʿUthman in al-Dalaʾil (p. 494), but the words “from Abu Salih” were omitted from its chain of transmission. I do not know whether this was the fault of the copyist or the printer, or whether the report reached him in this form. The former is more likely, for I saw the hadith in Ibn al-Jawzi’s al-ʿIlal al-Mutanahiyah (1/256/415), where he narrated it through al-Daraqutni, from this Musa, from Abu Salih, and declared it defective because of Musa.