I came to Abū al-Dardāʾ while he was in Syria, and he said: What brings you here, my son, to this town, and what has troubled you to do so? I said: Nothing brought me except to maintain the bond that was between you and my father. He took my hand and seated me, and I leaned against him, then he said: What a terrible time it is to lie about the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam). I heard the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) say: "There is no Muslim who commits a sin, then performs ablution, then prays two or four units, obligatory or non-obligatory, then seeks forgiveness from Allāh, except that Allāh forgives him." And he said: "This ḥadīth is not narrated from Abū al-Dardāʾ except with this isnād, and it was exclusively narrated by Ṣadaqah ibn Abī Sahl." I said: And he is trustworthy as will be explained, and the rest of the narrators are trustworthy, so it is a ṣaḥīḥ isnād. Al-Mundhirī said in "al-Targhīb" (1/106 and 146): "Aḥmad narrated it with a good isnād." Al-Haythamī said (2/278-279) - and he was followed by al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿAsqalānī in "Natāʾij al-Afkār" (2/229): "Aḥmad and al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in 'al-Kabīr'... and its isnād is good." Then al-Haythamī forgot this in two other places! He said (10/207):