Further evidence of the aforementioned omission is that more than one narrator reported it from Ibn Lahiʿah, including al-Walid ibn Muslim in Tarikh Ibn ʿAsakir (9/810), and Muhammad ibn Muʿawiyah—the abandoned narrator from Nishapur—in al-Bayhaqi’s Shuʿab al-Iman (7/123/9714).

It therefore appears that Abdullah ibn Wahb likewise transmitted it from Ibn Lahiʿah. If this is established, then the chain of transmission is authentic. And Allah knows best.

As for the corroborating report, Ibn Abi al-Dunya also recorded it (42/5) through Yahya ibn Sulaym, from Muhammad ibn Muslim, who said: “It reached me that a man ...” The report is limited to the hadith cited in the heading.

This chain is suitable for corroboration despite its double break, for Yahya and Muhammad—both of whom were from Ta’if—had no connection with Ibn Lahiʿah the Egyptian. They were both truthful, though their retention was weak. Muhammad ibn Muslim belonged to the same generation as Ibn Lahiʿah, and thus corroborates him in general, Allah willing.

Moreover, it appears that he has another corroborating narrator. Al-Haythami cited the hadith in al-Majmaʿ (5/278–279), with a fuller wording than that of Ahmad, on the authority of ʿUbadah ibn al-Samit, and said:

“Al-Tabarani reported it through two chains of transmission. One contains Ibn Lahiʿah; his hadith is good, though it contains weakness. The other contains Suwayd ibn Ibrahim, whom Ibn Maʿin deemed trustworthy in two reports, while al-Nasa’i declared him weak. The rest of the narrators in both chains are trustworthy.”

It is regrettable that the part of al-Tabarani’s al-Muʿjam al-Kabir containing the reports of ʿUbadah ibn al-Samit has not yet been published, so that we might know whether there is any difference between the two chains of transmission and examine the chain of Suwayd ibn Ibrahim: whether he fully corroborates Ibn Lahiʿah, or whether his corroboration of him