range of the sound reports into the category of the weak.”

He then refuted Ibn Ḥazm’s criticism that the report is interrupted; the rest of his rebuttal will come, God willing, in Chapter Three.

The point is that the ḥadīth is not interrupted between al-Bukhārī and his teacher Hishām, as Ibn Ḥazm alleged and as some modern writers have uncritically repeated—a matter that will be clarified in the chapter just mentioned, God willing. Even were we to assume, for the sake of argument, that the chain were broken, this would be no more than a relative defect and could not be held against the narration, because the same ḥadīth reaches us with continuous chains through several trustworthy ḥuffāẓ who heard it directly from Hishām b. ʿAmmār. To insist on claiming a break under such circumstances is blatant obstinacy, like someone who rejects a sound chain because he has come across another that is weak. Let us therefore cite the reliable transmitters whose narrations are available in the primary sources before us, and for the rest we shall merely point the reader to the commentaries and other collections.

First: Ibn Ḥibbān records it in his Ṣaḥīḥ (8/265/6719, al-Iḥsān) with the wording: “Al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Qaṭṭān informed us; Hishām b. ʿAmmār narrated to us …” up to the words “the musical instruments.” Al-Qaṭṭān is a reliable ḥāfiẓ; see his biography in Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (14/287).

Second: Al-Ṭabarānī includes it in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (3/319/3417), and Daʿlaj records it in Musnad al-Muqillīn, in the selection transmitted by al-Dhahabī (1-2/1), both with the chain: “Mūsā b. Sahl al-Jawnī al-Baṣrī narrated to us; Hishām b. ʿAmmār narrated to us …” identical to al-Bukhārī’s version. Al-Ḍiyāʾ al-Maqdisī likewise transmits it through al-Ṭabarānī’s chain in his Muwāfaqat Hishām b. ʿAmmār (fol. 37/1-2).