as al-Ḥāfiẓ stated in al-Taqrīb.

Al-Haythamī confined his criticism of the chain to only the first of the two, which is an oversight.

Note: Al-Mundhirī, in al-Targhīb (3/168), also attributed Jābir’s first hadith to al-Tirmidhī. This is an error: al-Tirmidhī did not narrate it, and I have not seen it attributed to him anywhere other than al-Targhīb. This should therefore be verified: was it an error by the author, the copyist, or the printer? Hence this note.

After writing the above, I found another route for the hadith, from Ibrāhīm al-Ṣāʾigh, with the same wording. Al-Khaṭīb narrated it in Tārīkh Baghdād (6/377; 11/302) through ʿAmmār ibn Naṣr and Aḥmad ibn Shujāʿ al-Marwazī, from Ḥakīm ibn Zayd al-Ashʿarī, from him, with the same wording.

All its narrators are trustworthy except this Ḥakīm. Al-Dhahabī, followed by al-ʿAsqalānī, included him and said: “He narrated from Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī; al-Azdī said: ‘There is cause for scrutiny concerning him.’”

Yet both of them overlooked Ibn Abī Ḥātim’s biographical notice on him, in which he says (1/2/204–205): “He narrated from Abū Isḥāq al-Hamadānī and Ibrāhīm al-Ṣāʾigh. Abū Thumaylah and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Rabīʿ al-ʿĀʾidhī al-Kirmānī narrated from him. I heard my father say this. I asked him about him, and he replied: ‘He is sound; he is a shaykh.’”

I say: This is an important biographical notice, and upon finding these two accounts, the heart was reassured as to the hadith’s established authenticity. This therefore warranted its inclusion in this series. All praise is due to Allah for His enabling grace and bounty.

375 — “This matter will remain among Quraysh so long as two people remain.”

Al-Bukhārī narrated it (6/416; 13/100), as did Muslim (7/3), al-Ṭayālisī (no. 1956), and Aḥmad (2/29, 93, 128), from ʿĀṣim ibn Muḥammad ibn Zayd, from his father, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, in a report attributed to the Prophet.