“Al-Bukhari deemed him trustworthy, and Ibn Maʿin said: ‘There is no harm in him.’ Abu Hatim said: ‘He is weak.’ Abu Dawud said: ‘His hadith are rejected.’ Ibn Hibban said …” — and he cited his earlier statement. “Ibn Hibban mentioned no other hadith of his. Its chain is good and its meaning sound. Being with them does not necessarily entail being at their rank, as in His saying, Exalted is He: ‘And whoever obeys Allah and the Messenger …’” — to the end of the verse.

This is the conclusion to which I have finally become convinced and which has put my mind at ease, after I had declared it weak in some of my hadith documentations. O Allah, forgive me!

It also has a corroborating report through al-Hasan, from Abu Saʿid al-Khudri, attributed to the Prophet with the same wording.

It was narrated by a group of scholars, among them al-Tirmidhi — who graded it good — and al-Baghawi endorsed this in Sharh al-Sunnah (8/4/2025), as did al-Mundhiri in al-Targhib (3/28/1) and al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir in the Exegesis (1/523). Al-Hakim considered it defective because of the discontinuity between al-Hasan — that is, al-Hasan al-Basri — and Abu Saʿid al-Khudri. Thus, it is a good corroborating report, Allah willing.

As for the three blind followers, they reversed the ruling out of ignorance: they graded Abu Saʿid’s hadith good merely by following al-Tirmidhi, and declared the hadith under discussion weak merely by following the author of al-Zawaʾid!! *

3454 — “Keep your children indoors at the first darkness of nightfall, and beware of staying up in conversation after people have settled down; for you do not know what creatures Allah sends forth! Close the doors, extinguish the lamps, turn the vessels upside down, and tie up the waterskins.”

Al-Humaydi narrated it in his Musnad (535/1273): Sufyan narrated to us; Abu al-Zubayr narrated to us that he heard Jabir ibn ʿAbd Allah say: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: … and he mentioned it.