he did not assert it categorically, for he says: “It is as though Ibn Ḥibbān…,” and he inferred this from Ibn Ḥibbān’s own words that he had just cited: “This is the ruling regarding the well-known transmitters; as for the unknown ones…,” and so forth. Yet the second example plainly undermines that conclusion.

To sum up, being unknown in identity (jahālah al-ʿayn) is, by itself, not a discrediting flaw in Ibn Ḥibbān’s estimation. My conviction of this increased after I examined the biographical entries in his work al-Duʿafāʾ, which number roughly 1,400 transmitters. I did not find among them anyone whom he faulted merely for anonymity—except for four, and even those he censured because of the objectionable reports they transmitted, not because they were unknown. Their names and his comments on them are as follows:

1 – Ḥumayd ibn ʿAlī ibn Hārūn al-Qaysī. In 1/263–264 he records several aberrant reports from him and then remarks: “It is impermissible to adduce his narrations as proof after he has related such things from these trustworthy men … and he is a shaykh scarcely known to anyone.”

2 – ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Laylā al-Anṣārī. He says, 2/5: “This man is unknown. I know of nothing he transmits except this condemned statement whose falsehood is universally acknowledged by all Muslims.”

3 – ʿAbdullāh ibn Ziyād ibn Sulaym. He says, 2/7: “An unknown shaykh from whom only Baqiyyah ibn al-Walīd narrates—I do not know of any transmitter for him other than Baqiyyah, and we have already noted Baqiyyah’s weakness at the beginning of the book. Therefore I cannot pass final judgment on him, yet whatever he has related must in any case be discarded.”

4 – Abū Zayd. He says, 3/158: