Is it valid to weaken the hadith of 'Abd Allah ibn al-Sa'ib regarding supplication between the Yemeni Corner and the Black Stone?

The questioner : Some contemporary scholars weaken the hadith of 'Abd Allah ibn al-Sa'ib, which concerns supplication between the Yemeni Corner and the Black Stone, and which is known to us. What is the validity of this?

The Shaykh : We have answered this question regarding the weakening in some of our sessions during this journey. We say: The weakening of the hadith of 'Abd Allah ibn al-Sa'ib is a contextual weakening; I mean that it is weak in its own right. However, many weak hadiths have their chains elevated from weakness to goodness, or even to authenticity, through corroborating narrations (shawahid) that scholars find. I mentioned some of these corroborations for the hadith of 'Abd Allah ibn al-Sa'ib in some of my writings. Among them is that this was established from 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) through his action. The action of a Companion that matches a hadith with a weak chain gives that hadith strength; if this hadith were stripped of the report stopping at the Companion, the hadith would remain weak as its chain indicates. In addition to this, there is a hadith in some of the Sunan collections—I think it is in Sunan Ibn Majah—narrated by Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), which also indicates the legitimacy of supplication: and so on, between the two corners. By this, the hadith of 'Abd Allah ibn al-Sa'ib, which has a weak chain, has entered the rank of a hasan li-ghayrihi (good by virtue of other evidence), at least hasan li-ghayrihi. This is our answer.