as for Ibn Ḥibbān, he mentioned him in "al-Thiqāt," and the ḥāfiẓ said: "His ḥadīth is weak." I said: al-Ḥasan is al-Baṣrī, and he is a mudallis, and he narrated it with ʿanʿanah. However, Aḥmad (4/436) reported it through the route of Sharīk ibn ʿAbd Allāh from Manṣūr from Khaythamah from al-Ḥasan who said: "I was walking with ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn, one of us holding the other's hand, and we passed by a beggar reciting the Quran..." and the ḥadīth is similar. I said: and this Sharīk is the judge, and he has poor memory, so he is not relied upon, especially when he contradicts the narration of Sufyān. al-Tirmidhī deemed this ḥadīth ḥasan despite its weak isnād because it has many supporting narrations, and this is a convention he stated in "al-ʿIlal" at the end of "al-Sunan" where he said (4/400): "And what we mentioned in this book as 'ḥadīth ḥasan,' we meant by it that its isnād is ḥasan according to us, every ḥadīth that is narrated without someone in its isnād being accused of lying, and the ḥadīth is not shādh, and it is narrated from more than one route like that, it is ḥadīth ḥasan according to us." It is strange that this statement of al-Tirmidhī is hidden from the ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr, for when he mentioned it in "Ikhtiṣār ʿUlūm al-Ḥadīth" from Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, he followed it with the statement (p. 40): "And this, if it was narrated from al-Tirmidhī that he said it, in which of his books did he say it?!" So you have come to know in which of his books he said it, so glory be to Him who nothing is hidden from Him. Then al-Shawkānī (5/243) reported that al-Tirmidhī said after narrating it: "This is a ḥadīth ḥasan, its isnād is not that strong." And in our copy, this is not present: "its isnād is not that strong." And Allāh knows best