would outwardly profess to be a Sunni with regard to precedence and the caliphate, yet he was severely—indeed excessively—biased against Muʿāwiyah, may Allah be pleased with him, and against Muʿāwiyah’s family. He displayed this attitude openly and offered no apology for it.

I heard Abū al-Fatḥ Samkuwayh in Herat say—having heard it from ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Malīḥī, who in turn heard it from Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī—that he said:

“I visited al-Ḥākim while he was inside his house, unable to go out to the mosque because of the followers of Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Karrām; they had smashed his pulpit and prevented him from leaving. I said to him, ‘If you were to go out and dictate a ḥadith on the virtues of this man, you would be delivered from the ordeal.’ He replied, ‘It will not come from my heart— it will not come from my heart.’” (2)

I also heard al-Muẓaffar ibn Ḥamzah in Jurjān relate—having heard it from Abū Saʿd al-Mālīnī—who said:

“I went through the book Al-Mustadrak ʿalā al-Shaykhayn that al-Ḥākim compiled, from beginning to end, and I did not find in it a single ḥadith that met their criteria.” (3)

I say: This is sheer obstinacy and exaggeration, and Abū Saʿd is not of a rank to pass such a ruling. In fact, the Mustadrak contains a great many reports that meet the standards of both of them, and a great many that meet the standard of one of them; together these may amount to about one-third of the book, or even less. Many ḥadiths that outwardly conform to the criteria of one or both actually contain subtle, consequential defects. Roughly one-quarter of the book has chains that are sound, fair, and good, while the rest consists of rejected reports and oddities. Scattered among them are about one hundred ḥadiths that the heart itself attests are false, and I had set apart some of them