By this critical analysis, the Shaykh’s reliance on Abū Ḥātim’s statement falls away, and it becomes evident that the correct version is the affirmative narration, whereas al-Darāwardī’s negation is a mistaken report that carries no weight.
Answer to the second point:
- As for the second issue—al-ʿIrāqī’s grading of the affirmative narration as weak—the response comes from two angles:
First: his view is opposed by the scholars who declared the ḥadīth authentic, and they are a group. When verdicts clash, the judgment of the majority prevails over that of a solitary critic. Those who authenticated it include al-Tirmidhī, Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Ḍiyāʾ al-Maqdisī (as will be shown), Ibn al-Qayyim in Zad al-Maʿad, and Abū al-Maḥāsin al-Maqdisī in Mukhtaṣar Aḥādīth al-Aḥkām (fol. 61/1). One may also add Imām Aḥmad and Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh, for they both accepted the ḥadīth and acted upon it—as al-ʿIrāqī himself concedes—which, God willing, testifies that they deemed the narration established, and that is precisely the point at issue.