Ibn Shahin recorded it in al-Targhib wa al-Tarhib (fol. 317/1).

I say: This Muhammad is Muhammad ibn ‘Isa ibn al-Qasim ibn Sumay‘—with the diminutive form. Al-Hafiz said: “Truthful, but he makes mistakes and practises tadlis.”

Another was Ruh ibn ‘Ubadah, who said: Thawr ibn Yazid narrated to us the same report. Abu Nu‘aym recorded it in al-Hilyah (5/217–218) and in Ahadith Abi al-Qasim al-Asamm (12/2), through Muhammad ibn Yunus al-Kudaymi, who said: Ruh ibn ‘Ubadah narrated to us the same report.

I say: Al-Kudaymi is accused, and al-Taqrib states: “Weak.”

I say: Yet he was not alone in narrating it. Abu Nu‘aym said immediately afterward: “It is singular among the reports of Khalid: Thawr alone narrated it, and it was transmitted from Ruh by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the leading scholars.”

I say: With Ahmad’s corroborating transmission and that of others, the hadith is authentic. Praise be to Allah.

It also has a supporting narration from Abu al-Darda’, attributed to the Prophet, with similar wording. Ibn Dust recorded it in al-Amali (fol. 118/2) through two routes from ‘Abd Allah ibn Salih, who said: Mu‘awiyah ibn Salih narrated to me from Abu al-Zahiriyyah, from him.

I say: This is a chain of transmission that is acceptable for supporting narrations. All its narrators are trustworthy transmitters found in the Sahih collections. However, although al-Bukhari narrated from ‘Abd Allah ibn Salih, al-Hafiz said of him: “Truthful, but prone to many errors; reliable in his book, though he was inattentive.”

Al-suwa is the plural of suwah: stone markers erected in trackless deserts and unknown wastelands, by which the road and its two sides are identified. What is meant is that Islam has paths and markers