contain objectionable reports from those weak transmitters; yet you have omitted them and recast the chain so that it appears as al-Awzaʿī narrating from trustworthy authorities, thereby weakening al-Awzaʿī himself.
He said, but he paid no attention to my words (1).
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “I have never seen among the Syrians anyone more intelligent than al-Walīd ibn Muslim.”
ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī remarked, “I have seen no one among the Syrians comparable to al-Walīd; he has transmitted rare, sound ḥadīths in which no one else shares with him.”
Ṣadaqah ibn al-Faḍl al-Marwazī stated, “I have not met a man with a better memory for lengthy ḥadīths and the traditions about the great battles than al-Walīd ibn Muslim; he even memorized the classified chapters.”
Abū Mushir said, “At times al-Walīd ibn Muslim would practice tadlīs, concealing the names of outright liars.”
I comment: “Al-Bukhārī and Muslim both count him as an authority, but they are selective, taking only what they judge reliable and avoiding what is criticised (2). In the last part of his life he travelled to Ramla, where its people transmitted extensively from him.”
Al-Dāraqutnī said, “Al-Walīd reports from al-Awzaʿī some ḥadīths that, in al-Awzaʿī’s own version, come through weak transmitters—shaykhs he had actually met—such as Nāfiʿ and ʿAṭāʾ, …”