3 – Chapter Three: Refutation of Ibn Ḥazm and others who challenged some of the aforementioned ḥadiths

I say: I have already answered Ibn Ḥazm and other detractors of authentic ḥadiths in the Introduction and while documenting the six sound reports cited earlier. What I now wish to clarify is that, in Ibn Ḥazm’s estimation—­and in ours—­the ḥadiths concerning prohibition fall into three categories:

1. Those he declared weak, in which verdict he was mistaken.

2. Those he never encountered, or for which he knew only some of the chains and not others. Had all the chains reached him and proven sound, he would have accepted them. For this he is excused—unlike his followers—especially since, after pronouncing certain reports weak, he added (swearing without committing perjury, God willing, 9/59):

   “By Allah, if the whole of it—or even one part—were transmitted through trustworthy routes back to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, we would not hesitate to adopt it.”

This is what we assume about him, and Allah is his reckoner. As for those who keep imitating him after the proof has been established and the clear path made manifest, they have no excuse and no honor. Their case resembles that of certain people in the pre-Islamic era who worshipped the jinn: the jinn embraced Islam, yet those people persisted in worshipping them and in their misguidance, as the Almighty says, “Those whom they invoke are themselves seeking a means of nearness to their Lord …”