Awn ibn ʿUmārah differed, saying: Khalīl ibn Aḥmad narrated to us, from ʿĀṣim, from al-Shaʿbī, from ʿĀʾishah, with the same wording.

Abū al-Shaykh recorded it in Ṭabaqāt al-Aṣbahāniyyīn (1/216/125).

I say: This Awn is weak, but the one who narrated from him—ʿAlī ibn Bishr al-Umawī—is even weaker. Abū al-Shaykh said:

“He was considered weak. He narrated from Yazīd ibn Hārūn, from Yaḥyā, from Anas, in a hadith traced back to the Prophet: ‘I saw a wolf in Paradise!’”

Al-Dhahabī said in al-Mīzān:

“This is among his grave errors.”

In sum, the hadith through the first route from Ibn Masʿūd is good, and it is authentic through the other routes and through the supporting report from ʿĀʾishah, may Allah be pleased with her.

I had previously included it in Ḍaʿīf al-Jāmiʿ, having been misled by al-Manāwī’s statement in Fayḍ al-Qadīr, in which he related from al-Dāraquṭnī that the latter had judged it weak in al-Afrād. But now that I have examined its chain through Ibn Ṭāhir al-Maqdisī’s Aṭrāf (Hadith Index), I find nothing in it to indicate that he judged it weak. Even if we were to grant that hypothetically, it is rebutted by what I have mentioned regarding the trustworthiness of its narrators, its routes, and its supporting report. I have therefore transferred it from Ḍaʿīf al-Jāmiʿ to its Ṣaḥīḥ. Allah, Most High, is the Granter of success, and I ask Him for more of His bounty! *

3486 — (When this verse was revealed: “There is no blame upon those who believe and do righteous deeds for what they have consumed, so long as they fear Allah, believe, and do righteous deeds; then fear Allah and believe; then fear Allah and excel in good. And Allah loves those who excel in good”—he said to me [meaning Ibn Masʿūd]: “It was said to me: ‘You are among them.’”)

Muslim recorded it (7/147), as did al-Tirmidhī (3053) and al-Nasāʾī in al-Sunan al-Kubrā