Second: The very principles of hadith methodology themselves point to the error of the aforementioned verdict of weakness. I earnestly hope that the respected shaykh—whether he or any of his partisans or anyone else—will not seize upon this statement to rush into denouncing us, for truth stands above personalities and genuine academic investigation recognizes no favoritism.

Furthermore, the shaykh has already preceded me in making a similar pronouncement: he flatly declared al-Tirmidhi to be mistaken, as you have seen. In like manner, I now declare both al-ʿIrāqī and the shaykh to be mistaken—but with a fundamental difference between us. He censures al-Tirmidhi merely by following al-ʿIrāqī, which is preference without proof, as is plain. Were someone to reverse the matter, follow al-Tirmidhi, and fault al-ʿIrāqī instead, he would find no way to condemn him except sheer assertion or the pursuit of whim. As for us, we criticize only in accordance with the scholarly principles that the experts have established as the measure for distinguishing error from correctness—and how vast the gulf is between the two approaches.