—as in (2/200); also by Ahmad (1/301), al-Hazimi in al-I‘tibar (pp. 62, 64), and al-Diyaʾ al-Maqdisi in al-Mukhtarah*—through the chain Thabit b. Yazid → Hilal b. Khabbab → Ikrimah, who transmits it. Ahmad and al-Hakim add: “He had sent them to invite the tribes to Islam, but they killed them.” Ikrimah commented, “This was the key that opened the practice of qunut.” Al-Hakim ruled, “Sahih according to the criteria of al-Bukhari,” and al-Dhahabi concurred; yet this is plainly debatable, for Hilal is not among al-Bukhari’s narrators and there is some criticism of him. Al-Nawawi (3/502) judged the isnad “hasan, if not sahih,” while Ibn al-Qayyim (1/101) called it “a sahih hadith.” Al-Shawkani stated in Nayl al-awtar (2/495): “The only possible weakness in the chain is Hilal b. Khabbab; some have spoken against him, but Ahmad, Ibn Maʿin, and others declared him reliable.” Ibn Hajar is silent about it in al-Talkhis (3/420). The sound conclusion is that the hadith is hasan, as al-Hazimi definitively held. (Note) The story of the Prophet’s supplication against Raʿl and Dhakwan appears in the two Sahihs from Abu Hurayrah—cited earlier—and from Anas, who adds: “That was the beginning of the qunut,” which parallels Ikrimah’s remark, “This is the key to the qunut.” The incident occurred in the fourth year after the Hijrah, three months after the Battle of Uhud, as Ibn Ishaq relates. * Shaykh … likewise attributes it in his work al-Sifah, published by al-Siraj.