(2/171–172/1130), through ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubārak, from Baqiyyah ibn al-Walīd, who said: Buḥayr ibn Saʿd informed me, from Khālid ibn Maʿdān, from al-Miqdām ibn Maʿdī Karib, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, who said: … Then he mentioned it.

I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission; all its narrators are trustworthy. Baqiyyah explicitly stated that he heard it directly, so there is no concern over his concealment in transmission.

Al-Nasāʾī then narrated it through Thawr, from Khālid ibn Maʿdān, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: … Then he mentioned it as a mursal report.

Its chain is likewise authentic, and the connected report does not render it defective, because Buḥayr ibn Saʿd—the one who narrated it with a continuous chain—is a trustworthy, reliable authority, as stated in al-Taqrīb. The addition of a trustworthy narrator is unanimously accepted here.

It also has two corroborating reports, similar to it, from the hadiths of Abū al-Dardāʾ and al-ʿIrbāḍ ibn Sāriyah. Ibn Ḥibbān recorded them in his Ṣaḥīḥ (881 and 882—Mawārid), through two chains, each of which strengthens the other. Al-Mundhirī cited them in al-Targhīb (2/93/5 and 6), indicating that they strengthen one another: he remained silent regarding the first hadith and pointed out the hidden defect in the other. He overlooked the hadith under discussion, and this was among the reasons for including it and demonstrating its authenticity, in support of the other hadiths.

The hadith of Abū al-Dardāʾ has another route with al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (17/131/322), through Jubārah ibn al-Mughallis: Bishr ibn ʿUmārah narrated to us, from al-Aḥwaṣ ibn Ḥakīm, from Rāshid ibn Saʿd, from ʿUtbah ibn ʿAbd and Abū al-Dardāʾ, attributed to the Prophet, with the wording:

“Take the pre-dawn meal in the latter part of the night.”

And he would say:

“It is the blessed breakfast.”