the narrators; as for those unknown transmitters from whom only weak narrators have reported, they are to be discarded in all circumstances.” (al-Ḍuʿafāʾ, 2/192–193; the extra wording is drawn from the biography of ʿĀyidh Allāh al-Mujāshiʿī).

The ḥāfiẓ then said:

“I say: This view espoused by Ibn Ḥibbān—that once the anonymity of a man’s person (ʿayn) is removed he is presumed upright until some flaw becomes evident—is a remarkable opinion, and the majority take the opposite stance. It is the very path Ibn Ḥibbān follows in the work he compiled entitled Kitāb al-Thiqāt, for he lists therein a host of individuals whom Abū Ḥātim and others expressly declared to be unknown. In Ibn Ḥibbān’s judgment the anonymity of identity is lifted by the narration of a single well-known transmitter; this was also the view of his teacher Ibn Khuzaymah, yet the man’s unknown status with respect to reliability remains in the estimation of other scholars.” All of the foregoing is the ḥāfiẓ’s statement.

What is even more curious is that, on the basis of this unsound rule, Ibn Ḥibbān inserts into the aforesaid book a number of people about whom he frankly says that he “does not know them or their fathers.” Thus, in the third tier he writes: “Sahl, who narrates from Shaddād ibn al-Hād; Abū Yaʿfūr transmits from him. I do not know him, nor do I know who his father is.”

Whoever wishes for additional examples should consult al-Ṣārim al-Munkī, pp. 92–93, where, after citing them, he says:

“Ibn Ḥibbān has mentioned in this book a great many of this stripe. His method therein is to list those for whom no criticism is known even though they remain unknown and their state is not established. One must therefore be alert to this and realize that Ibn Ḥibbān’s authentication of a man merely by recording him in that book represents one of the lowest grades of endorsement.”