(2 – continued) It was recorded by al-Bukhari (3/158), Abu Dawud (2/68), al-Nasai (1/281), al-Tirmidhi (1/191, Bulak ed.), al-Daraqutni (p. 191), al-Hakim (1/358, 386), and Ibn Khuzaymah in his Sahih, all through the chain of Shuʿbah and Sufyan al-Thawri, from Saʿd ibn Ibrahim, from Talhah ibn Abdullah. Al-Hakim remarked, “Authentic according to the criteria of both shaykhs,” and al-Dhahabi concurred. They erred in two respects: (i) they treated it as an addition to what al-Bukhari missed, whereas it is already in his Sahih; and (ii) it is not on Muslim’s terms, for Muslim did not narrate from this Talhah. Al-Nasai also transmitted it through Ibrahim ibn Saʿd, from his father, with the wording: “He recited the Opening of the Book and another surah, and he raised his voice so that we could hear. When he had finished I took his hand and asked him; he replied, ‘It is sunnah and unquestionably right.’” This chain is sound: all its transmitters are those relied upon by al-Bukhari except al-Haytham ibn Ayyub, the narrator from Ibrahim. He is one of al-Nasai’s teachers and was declared reliable by both al-Nasai and Ibn Hibban; Ibn Hajar likewise says in al-Taqrib that he is “trustworthy.” Four other firmly reliable narrators support this additional wording. Their names and the sources, briefly, are: 1) Sulayman ibn Dawud al-Hashimi – cited by Ibn al-Jarud in al-Muntaqa, no. 537.