I say: This chain of transmission is weak. Rashid ibn Yahya—also said to be Ibn ʿAbdullah—Abu Yahya, is unknown, as al-Husayni stated. Only two weak narrators reported from him: Ibn Lahiʿah and ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Ziyad al-Ifriqi. See Taysir al-Intifaʿ. I previously traced al-Ifriqi’s hadith from him under no. (2639), as a corroborating report for it; for this reason, I have also cited his hadith here, as will follow.

Al-Haythami said in Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid (10/78):

“Ahmad and al-Tabarani reported it, and Ahmad’s chain of transmission is good!”

Al-Mundhiri said likewise in al-Targhib (2/234), except that he did not mention al-Tabarani. The annotators of the new edition of al-Targhib (2/381/2234) merely followed them, without any explanation, as is their habit. Yet you now know that the basis for what they graded as good is a weak narrator reporting from an unknown one!

For that reason, I had included it in Daʿif al-Jamiʿ al-Saghir before the fascicle containing this hadith from volume (13) of al-Tabarani’s al-Muʿjam al-Kabir was published. I then found it there (21/36), through the route of Rushdayn ibn Saʿd and Khalid ibn Humayd al-Mahrani—though the original has: al-Hamdani—from Zuhrah ibn Maʿbad, from Abu ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Hubuli, with the same wording.

Khalid ibn Humayd is trustworthy and is among the narrators included in al-Tahdhib. As for Rushdayn ibn Saʿd, although he is weak, his report is corroborated. Were it not for a weakness in the route leading to the two of them—which I see no significant benefit in detailing—I would have said that the hadith is authentic. But it is sufficient for me to classify it as good on the strength of the two routes together from al-Hubuli.

As for Shaykh Ahmad Shakir—may Allah have mercy on him—he explicitly declared Ahmad’s chain authentic (10/179), on the basis of his reliance upon Ibn Hibban’s declarations of reliability, even for unknown narrators, and his disregard for the statements of the hadith masters who judged Ibn Lahiʿah weak—even those who distinguished between what the ʿAbadilah narrated from him, which is authentic, and what others narrated from him. And Allah is the Granter of success. *