—nor is this due to heedlessness. Rather, we set aside any of his reports when we know with certainty that he transmitted them in mursal form, or when we know that he dropped someone from the chain. As for the rest—those narrations about which we are not sure of any such omission—we accept them. It makes no difference whether he says, “So-and-so narrated to us,” or “from so-and-so,” or simply, “So-and-so from so-and-so”; every one of these formulations is to be accepted unless it is firmly established that he cited a particular ḥadīth without an isnād. Should we be certain of that, we leave that single report aside and accept all his other narrations.

I say: This explicit statement of Ibn Ḥazm requires us to treat al-Bukhārī’s wording, “Hishām said…,” exactly like his wording, “Hishām narrated to us….” Consequently, Ibn Ḥazm’s claim of a break in the chain collapses, and it becomes evident that those who merely imitate him “follow nothing but conjecture and what their souls desire” (Q 53:23). Allah alone is sought for help.

With this, the response to the first alleged defect—the disconnection that Ibn Ḥazm and his followers imagined—comes to an end; it is now clear that it is nothing but a mirage.

The reply to the second objection remains: the purported uncertainty over the Companion’s name. Among the scholars this is an even flimsier doubt. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar states in Fatḥ al-Bārī 10/24, “Uncertainty regarding the Companion’s name does no harm; Ibn Ḥazm faulted the ḥadīth on that basis, but his criticism is rejected.”

I say: The reason is that the narrator who reports from him explicitly states that he heard from the Prophet ﷺ, and he is a trustworthy leading Successor—indeed, some even counted him a Companion. He knew perfectly well the Companion who related the ḥadīth to him from the Prophet ﷺ, all the more so since he reinforced his testimony by declaring, “By Allah, he never lied to me.” After such an affirmation, his subsequent doubt or hesitation does not affect us so long as he has informed us of that Companion’s status. What strengthens this point further is Ibn Ḥazm’s own statement—found in the chapter detailing who must be accepted as a transmitter of reports in his work al-Iḥkām fī Uṣūl al-Aḥkām—