Now I return to remind the respected professor of this fact, for “reminding benefits the believers” ⦗1⦘. I have given this discussion fuller treatment in Irwāʾ 485; whoever wishes may consult it there.

His statement under number 6 reads: “It is reported from Ibn ʿUmar that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to say, ‘Whoever renews his ablution while already in a state of purity will have ten good deeds recorded for him.’ ” It was narrated by Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, and Ibn Mājah.

I say: This wording suggests that al-Tirmidhī—whose practice is to grade a ḥadith as authentic or weak—remained silent about this narration, yet in fact he stated explicitly after citing it that its chain is weak.

Someone might excuse the author by saying that, for the sake of brevity, he omitted al-Tirmidhī’s verdict and contented himself with indicating the ḥadith’s weakness by prefacing it with the phrase “ruwiya (it is reported).” I reply: that is not sufficient, for we are instructed to address people in terms they understand. This prefatory expression is a technical convention among ḥadith specialists, and only a handful of this book’s readers will recognize its import. The author himself overlooked this fact when he quoted certain reports from al-Mundhirī’s Targhīb introduced with the same word “ruwiya,” then added, “Al-Mundhirī remained silent about them,” even though al-Mundhirī’s very use of that formula signaled that he deemed the ḥadith weak. If the author missed this point, it is even more likely to escape his readers—especially since he did not state in his Introduction that he was adopting this convention, whereas al-Mundhirī explicitly did so. I have quoted al-Mundhirī’s words in the preface to these annotations under Principle 13; consult them there.

Indeed, I am not convinced that the author actually intended to weaken the ḥadith by employing this prefatory term in imitation of al-Mundhirī, for the reasons just mentioned.