“Al-Bazzar narrated it, and all its narrators are narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ, except ʿUqbah ibn Sinān, who is weak.”

I had questioned this grading as weak in Ghāyat al-Marām (174/285), for reasons I mentioned there; whoever wishes may refer to them. In summary, there is no basis for grading him weak, for among those named ʿUqbah ibn Sinān, none has been declared weak. They are three: one of them is unknown in status and belongs to an earlier generation than this man, while the other two are trustworthy. One of the latter is ʿUqbah ibn Sinān ibn ʿUqbah al-Hudādī al-Baṣrī, who narrated from Ghassān ibn Muḍar; thus, he is the one in question. Abū Ḥātim said of him: “Truthful.”

The remaining narrators in the chain are trustworthy and are among the narrators of the two Shaykhs, apart from Ghassān ibn Muḍar, who is trustworthy and was one of al-Nasāʾī’s shaykhs. Al-Haythamī erred in not excepting him along with ʿUqbah ibn Sinān in his preceding statement. Thus, the chain is good, as al-Mundhirī stated in al-Targhīb (4/52/7), and as al-Ḥāfiẓ likewise stated in al-Fatḥ (10/217).

The hadith also has many corroborating reports that add to its strength. I have cited some of them in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl (7/68–70), Ghāyat al-Marām (172–173/284), and Ādāb al-Zifāf (105–107).

Note: Ibn al-Athīr said in al-Nihāyah:

“The soothsayer is one who professes knowledge of events that will take place in the future and claims knowledge of hidden matters. Among the Arabs there were soothsayers, such as Shiqq, Satīḥ, and others. Some of them claimed to have an attendant from among the jinn and a familiar spirit that would convey reports to him. Others claimed to know matters through preliminary signs and causes, by which they inferred their occurrence from the words, actions, or circumstances of the person consulting them. This latter type they specifically called a diviner, such as one who claims to know the whereabouts of a stolen item, a lost article, and the like. The hadith which states, ‘Whoever goes to a soothsayer …’ may include going to