for the soundness of the affirmative recension, all four of these trustworthy narrators concur that the reliable Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar transmitted this ḥadith with the affirmative wording, and that in this respect his version is exactly the same as that of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar.

Now, once you remember that ʿĪsā ibn Minā departed from them in this report—as has already been explained in detail—and that he is weak, it is in no way permissible to give preference to his narration over theirs and to assert, as al-ʿIrāqī (may Allah pardon him) did, that his wording represents the version of Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar. Quite the contrary is correct, as anyone of sound judgment will readily see.

This is because it is an established principle in ḥadith criticism that when a trustworthy narrator contradicts someone who is more precise than he is, or when his version is opposed by a larger number of reliable transmitters, his report is deemed shādh (irregular); and if the one who contradicts is weak, his report is labeled munkar1 (rejected). Had Ibn Minā himself been reliable, his narration would still have been classified as shādh and therefore rejected—how much more so when he is weak? There can be no doubt about the matter.