and in one version Abu Qilabah explicitly stated that he had heard it from Thabit. Thus, if Hammad ibn Salamah preserved his chain of transmission, Ayyub would have had two chains; otherwise, there is no harm, since it merely represents a shift from one Companion to another, and all of them are upright.
Once you understand this, it is strange that al-Bazzar said after the hadith of Imran:
“We know it to be narrated only from Imran and Thabit ibn al-Dahhak. The hadith of Imran has the better chain of transmission [sic], and Imran is more eminent. We know of no one who narrated this except Hammad!”
I say: Hammad was an imam, though he made errors when narrating from narrators other than Thabit al-Bunani. Even so, how can his chain stand against the group who contradicted him in it?! The truth is that their narration is weightier. At most, his narration may be considered preserved; but it is not better.
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- “People will continue to prosper so long as they do not envy one another.”
Al-Tabarani recorded it in al-Mu'jam al-Kabir (8/369/8157): al-Hasan ibn Jarir al-Suri narrated to us; Sulayman ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Dimashqi narrated to us; Isma'il ibn Ayyash narrated to us, from Dumdum ibn Zur'ah, from Shurayh ibn Ubayd, from Abu Bahriyyah, from Damrah ibn Tha'labah, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: ... He then cited it.
I say: This is a good chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy and are among those cited in al-Tahdhib. Although some of them are subject to disagreement, this causes no harm, apart from al-Hasan ibn Jarir al-Suri, al-Tabarani’s shaykh. He was one of his well-known shaykhs. Al-Hafiz Ibn Asakir included a biographical notice for him in Tarikh Dimashq (4/419), noting his transmission from a number of trustworthy narrators and that approximately twenty shaykhs narrated from him, some of them hadith masters. Al-Hafiz al-Dhahabi described him in Siyar A'lam al-Nubala' (13/442) as “the imam and hadith scholar.”
Moreover, it is corroborated. Abu al-Shaykh Ibn Hayyan said in al-Tawbikh (108/78): Abu al-Jarud narrated to us; Abu Sayyar narrated to us; Muhammad ibn Isma'il ibn Ayyash narrated to us; my father narrated to us with the same chain.