“The chain of transmission is authentic.” Al-Dhahabī rebutted him, saying:

“I say: Aḥmad—that is, Ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Wahb—is weak.”

I say: Ibn Ḥibbān and al-Bazzār narrated it by routes other than his, as previously indicated. As for al-Manāwī’s statement in Fayḍ al-Qadīr:

“Al-Dhahabī criticized it on the grounds that Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān ibn Bilāl—one of its narrators—is weak; so how can it be authentic?!”

I say: Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān ibn Bilāl is a person who does not exist. Rather, al-Ḥākim narrated it by way of Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Wahb: “My uncle narrated to me: Sulaymān ibn Bilāl informed me...”

I say: Consider, then, how the matter became confused for al-Manāwī, so that he combined three names in this chain of transmission in his mind and formed that nonexistent name!

The narrator around whom these routes revolve is Kathīr ibn Zayd—the Medinan al-Aslamī—concerning whom there is disagreement. Abū Zurʿah said of him—and al-Dhahabī followed him in al-Kāshif:

“Truthful, though he has some weakness.”

Al-ʿAsqalānī said:

“Truthful, but makes mistakes.”

Ibn ʿAdī cited, concerning him, in al-Kāmil (6/67–69), hadiths narrated from him by some of the three, and said:

“I have not found anything objectionable in his hadith.”

I say: It appears to me, from this statement of his and the statements of the other imams, that he is of middling rank and his hadith is good unless he contradicts others. For this reason, I graded some of his hadiths as good earlier in this