through the narration of a number of trustworthy narrators, to whom this Ṭalq and the corroborating narrator to be mentioned below are added. Yet he did not mention any narrator criticism or accreditation concerning him. Ibn Ḥibbān included him in his book al-Thiqāt (8/252), through the narration of one of the trustworthy narrators, Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd.

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd was uncertain about his shaykh: was he Shaqīq or Zirr? This does not affect the authenticity of the hadith, for it is a shift from one trustworthy narrator to another, as Shaykh Aḥmad Shākir—may Allah have mercy on him—said in his commentary on al-Musnad (5/317).

Nevertheless, the more likely view, in my opinion, is that he was Zirr ibn Ḥubaysh, since this has also come through two other routes from his son Zakariyyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh:

One of them is from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Zakariyyā: “Zakariyyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd al-Ṣuhbānī narrated to us,” through the same chain. Al-Bazzār recorded it (4/235/1848, al-Baḥr al-Zakhkhār) with similar wording, and said:

“It is not narrated with this wording from ʿAbd Allāh except through this chain of transmission.”

The other is from Yaḥyā al-Ḥammānī: “Zakariyyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṣuhbānī narrated to us,” through the same chain.

Al-Ṭabarānī recorded it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (10/163/10212).

I say: Al-Ḥammānī and Yaḥyā ibn Abī Zakariyyā—whom I believe to be al-Ghassānī (1)—both have some weakness. However, each strengthens the other, so that their combined evidence is sufficient to support this preference. And Allah knows best.

Al-Haythamī said concerning the hadith (10/51):

“Ahmad, al-Bazzār, and al-Ṭabarānī narrated it, and Ahmad’s narrators are trustworthy.”

I say: This narration of Ahmad’s was overlooked by a number of authors on narrator biographies, beginning with