Al-Dhahabī said in al-Mughnī:

“A Basran, one of the distinguished shaykhs; trustworthy. Al-Nasāʾī and Abū Ḥātim said: ‘He is not strong.’”

And in al-Kāshif he said:

“Truthful.”

Ibn Abī Ḥātim declared it defective, saying:

“This is an error; it is only a statement of Salmān himself, and Ashʿath is unknown and unrecognized!”

This is what he said. Yet Ibn Ḥibbān mentioned him in al-Thiqāt (8/128–129) and said:

“He narrates singular reports.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ concurred with this in al-Lisān, adding:

“Al-Bazzār said: ‘There is no harm in him. Our colleagues narrated from him: Bishr ibn Ādam, Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿUbaydah, and others.’”

I say: Despite all this—the preceding remarks of Abū Ḥātim concerning him, and Ibn Ḥibbān’s and al-Bazzār’s declarations that he was trustworthy—al-Mundhirī and others failed to identify him. Thus, in al-Targhīb (1/139/13), he said:

“Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in al-Kabīr and al-Ṣaghīr, and its chain contains Ashʿath ibn Ashʿath al-Saʿdānī, whose biographical entry I have not found!”

Al-Haythamī (1/300) followed him, as did the three annotators of al-Targhīb (1/311–312), who imitated the two of them and explicitly declared the hadith weak. Yet even if the man had been unknown, as they supposed, that would not necessarily render the hadith weak, for it has a corroborating report from Ibn ʿUmar through several chains, some of which are authentic. Its explanation and documentation have already preceded under no. 1398. Perhaps for that reason al-Mundhirī did not explicitly state—