Ibn Ḥajar, in Lisān al-Mīzān, endorsed that very principle, yet he and al-Dhahabī alike overlooked the fact that Ibn Ḥibbān actually listed al-Haytham ibn ʿImrān in al-Thiqāt (7/460) under the tier of the Followers of the Successors. On the strength of that rule—the very rule from which we ourselves set out to authenticate the ḥadith—al-Dhahabī, Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, and other leading critics went on to declare trustworthy a number of transmitters whom no one before them had ever explicitly rated. See, for example, the entry of Aḥmad ibn ʿAbdah al-Āmilī in al-Dhahabī’s al-Kāshif and in al-ʿAsqalānī’s Tahdhīb.

As for the narrators whom Ibn Ḥibbān deemed reliable and whom the later authorities not only accepted but sometimes described as “truthful” (ṣadūq) and at other times “his place is truthfulness”—both recognized terms of approval—they run into the hundreds. By way of illustration I shall cite ten of them, all beginning with the letter alif, drawn from Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb so that readers may see the matter clearly:

1 Ahmad ibn Thābit al-Jahdari
2 Ahmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Baṣrī
3 Ahmad ibn Muṣrif al-Yamī
4 Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥārith al-Jumaḥī
5 Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh al-Asadī
6 Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAbdullāh
7 Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Dāwūd al-Sawwāq
8 Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Bālsī
9 Ismāʿīl ibn Masʿūd ibn al-Ḥakam al-Zurqī
10 al-Aswad ibn Saʿīd al-Hamdānī

Every one of these men was declared trustworthy solely by Ibn Ḥibbān, yet al-Ḥāfiẓ (Ibn Ḥajar) described them with the two commendatory expressions just mentioned, and other hadith masters concurred with him regarding some of them and others of comparable standing.