whereas this very report from him is not established at all; and even if it were established, it would still not contravene the sound report from him, as will be clarified in the reply just referred to.

Third: He declares the hadith defective because of the discrepancy attributed to Saʿīd ibn Abī Maryam through the narration of al-ʿAllāf, even though that version is singular and contradicts what the trustworthy transmitters report from Saʿīd, as will be demonstrated in the answer to the third issue.

Fourth: He cites the narration of al-Darāwardī and then says, “It is stronger than the route of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar.” That observation is correct in itself, yet it gives the impression that ʿAbd Allāh received no corroboration—despite his own earlier statement that Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar supported ʿAbd Allāh’s exact wording according to al-Dāraquṭnī, as previously noted.

Therefore, the chains of Muḥammad and ʿAbd Allāh are in fact sounder than that of al-Darāwardī, as has already been shown.

These errors are the pillars upon which al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿIrāqī bases his assertion that “the narration affirming it to be a sunnah is weak.” Now that those pillars have collapsed, the claim constructed upon them has collapsed as well.