Muhammad ibn Isma‘il has been criticized, but that does not affect this report, since he merely provides corroboration.

This Abu Sayyar appears to be the one mentioned in Kunas of Abu Ahmad al-Hakim (1/):

“Abu Sayyar al-‘Ala’ ibn Muhammad ibn Sayyar narrated from Abu al-Muthanna Muhammad ibn ‘Amr ibn ‘Alqamah al-Laythi. Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Sawwab (1) al-Basri narrated from him. His hadith is found among the Basrans.”

Note: Brother Hasan Abu al-Ashbal discussed some of the narrators in al-Tawbikh, explicitly declaring its chain of transmission weak. He then followed this by citing what the reviewer of his book, Shaykh Muhammad ‘Amr ibn ‘Abd al-Latif, had said:

“[However, I fear that Shurayh ibn ‘Ubayd may not have heard it from Abu Bahriyyah, for he often transmitted mursal reports. Ibn Abi Hatim said in al-Marasil (p. 90): ‘Shurayh ibn ‘Ubayd al-Himsi did not meet Abu Umamah, al-Harith ibn al-Harith, or al-Miqdam.’ I say: Abu Umamah died in the year (86), and Abu Bahriyyah died in the year (77)—that is, both several years before him. I therefore fear that he may not have met him either. (M)]”!!

I say: This concern does not arise in my assessment, because Abu Hatim’s denial that he met them does not mean that he did not live in their time; the closeness of their dates of death confirms that. Rather, it means that he did not hear from them. Nor does this mean that he did not hear from everyone whose lifetime overlapped with his. Imam al-Bukhari explicitly states that Shurayh heard from Mu‘awiyah, who died in the year (60); thus, the possibility that he heard from Abu Bahriyyah is all the more apparent and likely. Thus, in the absence of an explicit statement by a critical hadith master