This Abū ʿAlī is al-Anṣārī, and he is extremely weak; yet he is not the only transmitter of the report. Tamām likewise recorded it (no. 4) by another route from Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd al-Ṭabarī who said, “Hudbah ibn Khālid narrated it to us ….” In that chain, Hudbah and everyone above him are trustworthy, apart from al-Ḥajjāj—the governor notorious for his tyranny.

9 – As for the ḥadith of ʿAbdullāh ibn Zayd, Ibn Mājah related it (no. 443): “Suwayd ibn Saʿīd told us; Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyā ibn Abī Zāʾidah told us, from Shuʿbah, from Ḥabīb ibn Zayd, from ʿAbbād ibn Tamīm, from ʿAbdullāh ibn Zayd,” traced back to the Prophet.

Al-Zaylaʿī (1/19) remarked, “This is the soundest chain on the subject, for it is connected and its narrators are reliable. Ibn Abī Zāʾidah, Shuʿbah, and ʿAbbād were accepted as proof by the two Shaykhs; Ḥabīb is listed by Ibn Ḥibbān in al-Thiqāt among the Followers of the Followers; and Suwayd ibn Saʿīd was relied upon by Muslim.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ countered in al-Dirāyah (p. 7) that Suwayd later became confused. He further says in al-Taqrīb: “He is sound in himself, but when he went blind he began parroting material that was not his own; Ibn Maʿīn spoke of him in very harsh terms.”

For this reason al-Būṣayrī stated in al-Zawāʾid (f. 33/2): “This chain is ḥasan provided that Suwayd ibn Saʿīd preserved it accurately.”

I say: Even so, nothing precludes its being ḥasan through corroboration, since all the transmitters are trustworthy and none is accused of fabrication. When one adds the sound route of Ibn ʿAbbās, together with his other chain that was authenticated by Ibn al-Qaṭṭān, Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Zaylaʿī, and others, the authenticity of the ḥadith is beyond doubt. And once the additional routes through the other Companions are considered, its strength only increases—indeed, according to some scholars it rises to the level of mutawātir.