youth, and no human being is immune to lapses or forgetfulness. Such a decline in memory, by itself, does no harm; what harms is actual confusion. As for Hishām—he was never confused at all, and on this point there is unequivocal agreement. His reports are accepted as authoritative in the Muwaṭṭaʾ, the two Ṣaḥīḥs, and the Sunan.

Ibn al-Qaṭṭān’s assertion that he became confused is therefore a rejected and worthless claim. Show me, if you can, any great imam who has been completely free of error and misconception.

Here is Shuʿbah, at the very height of scholarship, yet he had slips; the same is true of Maʿmar, al-Awzāʿī, and Mālik—may Allah have mercy on them all.

Aḥmad ibn Salāmah informed us in his book, through Khalīl ibn Abī al-Rajāʾ, and Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān, ʿAbd al-Muḥsin ibn Muḥammad, Ismāʿīl ibn Ṣāliḥ, and a group of others also reported to us. They said:

Yūsuf ibn Khalīl told us; Khalīl ibn Badr informed us; Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād informed us; Abū Nuʿaym the ḥāfiẓ informed us; Abū Bakr ibn Yūsuf narrated to us; al-Ḥārith ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Usāmah narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Kunāsah narrated to us; Hishām ibn ʿUrwah narrated to us, from his father, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ:

that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Allah does not take away knowledge by tearing it out of the people, but He takes it away by taking the scholars (in death). When He leaves no scholar remaining, the people take ignorant leaders; they are asked, they give legal rulings without knowledge, and so they go astray and lead others astray.” (1)

This hadith is sound and its chain fully connected; it appears in the five principal hadith compilations of Islam except Sunan Abī Dāwūd.

It is transmitted through thirteen chains from Hishām, and likewise through Abū al-Aswad, Yatīm ʿUrwah, from ʿUrwah, in similar wording.

A large number of transmitters related it from Hishām—Abū al-Qāsim al-ʿAbdī listed them—including Ibn ʿAjlān, Abū Ḥamzah al-Sukkari, Ibn Shihāb (who was older than he), Abū