Ḥammād ibn Salamah heard Ḥajjāj al-Aswad narrate to Thābit from Abū al-Ṣiddīq from Abū Dharr from the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) who said: "Indeed, you are in a time when whoever leaves - similar to it." I said: And this was connected by Aḥmad in "al-Musnad" (5/155): al-Muʾammal narrated to us: Ḥammād narrated to us: Ḥajjāj al-Aswad narrated to us - al-Muʾammal said: And he was a righteous man - he said: I heard Abū al-Ṣiddīq narrate to Thābit al-Bannānī from a man from Abū Dharr with it. I said: Aḥmad added to his isnād: "from a man," which corrupted it, and al-Haythamī criticized it (1/127), saying: "Aḥmad narrated it, and there is a man not named in it." I said: In my opinion, this addition is from al-Muʾammal, who is Ibn Ismāʿīl al-Baṣrī, for he had poor memory as mentioned in "al-Taqrīb," so he was inconsistent with it, sometimes mentioning it as preserved from Aḥmad, and sometimes not mentioning it as in the previous narration from Isḥāq, and Isḥāq is Ibn Rāhwayh the imām, and this is correct as it agrees with the narration of ʿĪsá ibn Yūnus, and there is no difference in it as you have seen, for it was agreed upon by ʿAlī ibn Khashram and Ibrāhīm ibn Mūsá - who is Abū Isḥāq al-Farrāʾ - and both are trustworthy from the men of the two Shaykhs, and from this it becomes clear that the ḥadīth is authentic in its isnād, all its men are trustworthy except for Ḥajjāj ibn Abī Ziyād, and he is trustworthy as Aḥmad and Ibn Maʿīn said, then al-Dhahabī in "Talkhīṣ al-Mustadrak" (4/332) and he summarized him in "al-Mīzān" with a brief and inadequate biography, contrary to al-Ḥāfiẓ in "al-Lisān," so refer to it, and he is the narrator of the ḥadīth "The Prophets are alive in their graves" mentioned earlier (621), so look at his biography then. As for the hesitation of Ḥajjāj between Abū Naḍrah and Abū al-Ṣiddīq, it does not harm the authenticity of the isnād because he hesitated between two trustworthy individuals, so be aware