What is the authenticity of the hadith: “The belt of the believer is at the muscles of his thighs, then at the middle of his thighs, then at his ankles, and whatever is below that is in the Fire”?

The student : From al-Awza'i, who said: Yahya—meaning Ibn Abi Kathir—narrated to us, from Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Taymi, from Ya'qub or Ibn Ya'qub, from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: .

The Shaykh : Now, what was your question regarding this?
The student : My question is about your ruling on this hadith: is it defective? First, regarding Ya'qub or Ibn Ya'qub, I do not know his status. If you, may Allah reward you, know it?

The Shaykh : The problem here is that this appears to be unknown and not recognized. However, the truth is that a researcher must not conclude before he has reviewed and exerted his full effort, so that he can say it is unknown or not recognized. If that is the case, and based on my initial hearing of this chain, the chain is sound in its narrators, all of them being trustworthy according to the condition ofThe Shaykh : al-Bukhari, as they say. However, there is another defect besides this man, which is that al-Walid ibn Muslim is known to have practiced tadlis al-taswiya (concealment of a defect in a chain by leveling the chain). For one who is in this situation, it is required that he explicitly state every level of the chain as a narration. Here, he did not explicitly state it at the end. Therefore, there may be some tadlis al-taswiya here, in addition to the fact that this narrator from Abu Hurayrah is at least unknown and requires specific study, so that we can be certain of this or deny it.