Perhaps al-Dhahabī refrained from describing him as one who practiced concealment in transmission because it was infrequent in comparison with the totality of hadiths he narrated. A narrator of this type is one whose reports transmitted with the ambiguous formula “from” scholars overlook, unless there appears in one of his hadiths something requiring its rejection—such as objectionable content, anomaly, or contradiction—or at least warranting suspension of judgment on its authenticity. Perhaps this is why Ibn Ḥibbān and his teacher included some of his reports with such ambiguous transmission in their two Ṣaḥīḥ collections, such as the hadith that follows this one and others. See Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān (375 and 420) and Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Khuzaymah (23, 1172, and 1684). It is also the reason al-Mundhirī graded this hadith sound, as noted above. And Allah knows best. *

3414—“Whoever, when he retires to his bed, says:

‘There is no god worthy of worship but Allah alone, without partner. To Him belong all dominion and all praise, and He is capable of all things. There is no power or strength except through Allah. Glory be to Allah, and all praise is for Allah, and there is no god worthy of worship but Allah, and Allah is the Greatest,’

his sins—or, he said, his errors; Misʿar was uncertain—will be forgiven, even if they are like the foam of the sea.”

Ibn Ḥibbān narrated it in his Ṣaḥīḥ (587/2365), Ibn al-Sunnī in ʿAmal al-Yawm wa-al-Laylah (229/716), and Abū Nuʿaym in Akhbār Iṣbahān (1/267), through the chain of Misʿar ibn Kidām, from Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bābāh, from Abū Hurayrah, from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), who said: … and he mentioned it.

Shuʿbah and Sufyān also narrated it from Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit with similar wording, except that neither of them attributed it to the Prophet.

Al-Nasāʾī narrated it in ʿAmal al-Yawm wa-al-Laylah (471/811), and said: