and the other was Abu Ishaq al-Fazari, from Shu‘bah through the same chain. Abu al-Shaykh transmitted it in al-Fawa’id (f. 81/2), and Ibn ‘Asakir in Tarikh Dimashq (4/76/1).

This Abu Ishaq was Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Harith. He was an authoritative imam, trustworthy and a leading hadith memorizer; al-Bukhari and Muslim both relied upon him in their Sahihs as well.

I say: Thus, these three reliable and firmly established narrators agreed in relating the hadith from Shu‘bah as attributed to the Prophet. This establishes the hadith. Al-Tirmidhi’s statement that the report attributed to the Companion is more authentic was only because he knew of no one besides Khalid ibn al-Harith who attributed it to the Prophet. Now that we have found others who likewise attributed it to the Prophet, this attribution is more authentic. All of this confirms the saying: “How much the earlier scholars have left for those who came after them.”

It has another route from Ya‘la ibn ‘Ata’, recorded by Abu Nu‘aym in al-Hilyah (6/215), but I do not know whether any textual corruption occurred in its chain of transmission.