(1) Reported by al-Bukhari, 5/121 and 12/37, and by Muslim, no. 1506, both in the Book of Manumission, chapter: “The prohibition of selling or giving away the right of walāʾ (clientage). This hadith is mainly known through the narration of ʿAbd Allah ibn Dīnār. Muslim, when citing it in his Sahih, remarked: “Everyone in this hadith depends on him.” After giving it, al-Tirmidhi said: “Sound and authentic; we know it only through the transmission of ʿAbd Allah ibn Dīnār, from whom it was taken by Saʿīd, Sufyān and Mālik.” It is related from Shuʿbah that he said: “I wish ʿAbd Allah ibn Dīnār had allowed me, when he narrated this hadith, to rise and kiss his head.” Abū Nuʿaym al-Asbahānī devoted a special study to collecting its various chains from ʿAbd Allah ibn Dīnār, recording it through thirty-five different transmitters who received it from him. (2) He is Abū Jaʿfar Muhammad ibn ʿAmr al-ʿUqaylī al-Ḥijāzī, who died in Mecca in 322/934. In his book al-Duʿafāʾ he criticised many narrators found in the two Sahihs, as well as leading jurists and hadith transmitters. This led Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr and other scholars — including the present author — to rebut him and point out his errors. The author says in his Mīzān, under the entry of ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī (no. 5874): “Al-ʿUqaylī listed him among the weak — what a poor judgment! Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Bukhārī — and that is saying enough — filled his Sahih with ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī’s narrations, and declared: ‘I never felt small before anyone except ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī.’ If we were to discard the hadith of ʿAlī, of his colleague Muhammad, of his shaykh ʿAbd al-Razzāq, and of ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd, ʿAffān, Abān al-ʿAṭṭār, Isrāʾīl, Azhar al-Sammān, Bahz ibn Asad, Thābit al-Bunānī and Jarīr ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, we would have to lock the door, end the discussion, the traditions would die out, heretics would prevail, and the Dajjāl would appear. Have you no sense, O ʿUqaylī? Do you realise whom you are criticising? We have followed you in mentioning this group only to defend them and refute the charges levelled against them. Do you not know that every one of these men is far more reliable than you by several degrees — indeed more reliable than many trustworthy narrators you did not criticise? No hadith specialist doubts this. Show me, if you can, a single reliable master who never erred or narrated something no one else supported. In fact, when a sound memoriser transmits hadith on his own, it raises his status, perfects his rank and proves his superior dedication to, and command of, hadith over his peers.”