I say: This is a chain of transmission that is continuous and apparently authentic; its narrators are trustworthy men whose reports are found in the two Ṣaḥīḥs.

However, it has a hidden defect: the reading anā (“I”) was corrupted by the copyist and the typesetter. The correct reading is: “I think Abū Ṣāliḥ mentioned it from Abū Hurayrah.” This is how Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAbsī transmitted it in Ḥadīth Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ (folio 134/1, al-Ẓāhiriyyah manuscript), and al-Bayhaqī transmitted it through his route in Shuʿab al-Īmān (3/174/3261).

This is further supported by the fact that al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr cited it in his Tafsīr (3/415), from Aḥmad’s transmission with the aforementioned chain, from al-Aʿmash, who said: “I think Abū Ṣāliḥ [mentioned it] from Abū Hurayrah,” etc. Perhaps the word dhakarahu (“mentioned it”) was omitted by the copyist.

For further verification, I consulted al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿAsqalānī’s Aṭrāf al-Musnad and found that he cited the hadith (7/193/447) after another hadith with a different chain from Abū Ṣāliḥ—that is, from Abū Hurayrah. He then cited this chain as far as al-Aʿmash, saying, “From him, with it,” but did not give it in full, so that we might determine how the chain appeared in his copy of the Musnad!

Similar is al-Haythamī’s statement in al-Majmaʿ (2/258):

“Reported by Aḥmad and al-Bazzār, and its narrators are the narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ.”

Yet elsewhere, he indicated what Ibn Kathīr had mentioned above, saying (7/89):

“Reported by Aḥmad, and its narrators are the narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ, except that al-Aʿmash said: ‘I think Abū Ṣāliḥ [mentioned it] from Abū Hurayrah.’”

In sum, this and what preceded it demonstrate that the wording in the Musnad—that al-Aʿmash said, “I”—is a corruption introduced by some copyists. And Allah knows best.