is self-evident. And should it turn out to be someone else, that person would be an unremarkable Successor who nonetheless follows Ibn Ghanm. In either case, the chain remains strong for corroboration and parallel transmission: all of its transmitters—apart from the unnamed informant—are trustworthy. Every one of them is listed in Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb except this Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, yet he too is reliable, as is plain from the fact that a number of reliable scholars narrate from him in Ibn ʿAsākir’s History (1/454–455) and elsewhere, and several leading critics declared him trustworthy. Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī said, “There is nothing objectionable about him.” Al-Ṭabarānī wrote in al-Muʿjam al-Ṣaghīr, “He was among the trustworthy Muslims.”

Ibn Ḥibbān knew him well: he included him in al-Thiqat, gave him the kunya Abū Isḥāq, and said (6/13), “He was one of the jurists of Syria and served as judge of Ḥimṣ. He reported from Ibn al-Munkadir and Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl, and al-Jarrāḥ b. Malīḥ and the people of his town narrated from him. Toward the end of his life he moved to Anṭarsūs, where he died while stationed on the frontier.”

These, then, are the verdicts of our Imams concerning this Ibrāhīm—unambiguous approval and authentication. What stance did the man who habitually weakens sound ahadith take? True to form, he ignored all of them, gave them no weight whatsoever, and invented an opinion of his own that no one before him had voiced. Thus, at the end of the article already cited, he wrote:

“Ibrāhīm is questionable;1 he is mentioned by al-Bukhārī, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, and Ibn Ḥibbān.”