It was reported by al-Tirmidhī (2541), Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād in Zawāʾid al-Zuhd (126/416), Aḥmad (1/169 and 171), al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ (9/407/8875), and al-Baghawī in Sharḥ al-Sunnah (15/214/4377), through several routes. One of them is: ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak informed us: Ibn Lahīʿah informed us, from Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb, from Dāwūd ibn ʿĀmir ...

Al-Tirmidhī and al-Baghawī said: “A singular hadith.”

This is how it appears in both of their works. However, al-Mundhirī reported from al-Tirmidhī in al-Targhīb (4/277/3) that he said: “A good, singular hadith.” He thus added the word “good.” This accords with the status of its chain of transmission, for all its narrators are trustworthy and are among Muslim’s narrators, except Ibn Lahīʿah. His hadith is authentic when it is transmitted by one of the ʿAbādilah, and this is such a case, as you can see.

I had overlooked this fact in my commentary on al-Mishkāh (no. 5637), for reasons, some of which are mentioned in the introduction. That was nearly forty years ago, and Allah determines the outcome of all matters. The three commentators on al-Targhīb (4/470) followed me in this oversight and declared the hadith weak, even though they saw that I had authenticated it in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr (no. 5127, the first authorized edition), which I compiled a few years after the date mentioned above. Brother ʿAlī Riḍā noticed all of this in his commentary on Ṣifat al-Jannah (1/81), and he was fair to me—may Allah reward him well. He did not exploit the oversight, as many innovators and some envious, spiteful, ignorant people do.

One indication of the ignorance and blind imitation of those three, and of their failure to benefit from what they cite by means of indexes, is that they attributed it, through “the Encyclopedia,” to “al-Bukhārī in al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr”