Al-Kalbi, whom Ibn Ḥibbān has already graded trustworthy, must therefore be accepted—especially since the Shaykh places weight on Ibn Ḥibbān’s rulings. In his own treatise (pp. 19 and 23) the Shaykh declared the two otherwise unknown narrators Khuzaymah and Kinānah reliable solely because Ibn Ḥibbān had done so, and on pp. 23 and 26 he rebutted our classification of them as obscure (following al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī) by writing:

“The obscurity of a narrator’s status or very person is removed when a critical ḥadith master vouches for him, and Ibn Ḥibbān has vouched for them.”

Since this is the Shaykh’s own criterion, he is duty-bound to affirm the uprightness of this Manṣūr as well; once he does, the hadith becomes sound in his estimation and free of any defect. This consequence is unavoidable—there is no way around it—nor can the Shaykh legitimately dispute it if, as I trust, he is a fair-minded seeker of truth.

Moreover, the hadith conveys precisely the same ruling affirmed by the narration of Anas, namely the permissibility of the contested act of breaking the fast, and it does so with unmistakable clarity. The words, “Then he broke his fast, and some people broke theirs with him,” are explicit—or virtually so—that they left the village while fasting and subsequently broke the fast. Accordingly, the Shaykh’s earlier objection does not apply to this report.