And in Tadhkirat al-Huffaz (3/1049), he described him as:

“the foremost hadith transmitter of Khurasan.”

He died in 409 AH.

Al-Mundhiri attributed the hadith to al-Bayhaqi in al-Targhib (2/153/18) and made no comment on it.

As for the three annotators of their new commercial edition (!), they asserted categorically (2/206) that it was “weak” (!), even though they attributed it to the previously mentioned location in Shuʿab al-Iman (The Branches of Faith)! This is one of the many proofs that they are ignorant of this discipline, blundering about in it like a blind camel in a pitch-dark night. Why did they not, at the very least, mention the defect responsible for its weakness? Thus, you find them declaring reports authentic or weak without proof or illuminating scripture. May Allah guide them and inspire both us and them with sincerity in word and deed. Amin.

Despite this unfairness and overreach, the hadith has another route of transmission and a corroborating report.

As for the route of transmission: Muhammad ibn Ishaq narrates it from Ibn Abi Najih through the same chain, in a similar but more complete wording.

Al-Tabarani recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabir (25/104/271). Al-Haythami said in Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid (10/304):

“Al-Tabarani narrated it, and its narrators are trustworthy, except that Ibn Ishaq practised tadlis.”

The hadith master made no comment on it in the biography of Umm Mubashshir al-Ansariyyah in al-Isabah, perhaps because of its various routes or corroborating reports.

As for the corroborating report: it is the hadith of Ibn ʿAbbas, recorded by al-Hakim, who authenticated it according to the conditions of al-Bukhari and Muslim; al-Dhahabi agreed with him. It is as they said, and its documentation has already preceded under no. (698), so there is no need to repeat it. *