“Abū Zayd. He transmits from Ibn Masʿūd a report for which he has no corroborator. But who is he? Neither his father nor his hometown is known. When a man is described in this way, and has narrated only a single report that clashes with the Qur’an, the Sunnah, the consensus, analogy, sound scrutiny, and considered opinion, he deserves to be shunned and his narration is inadmissible as evidence.”

From this Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī concluded, as cited above: “His method in the book is that he brands with a disparaging remark anyone he does not recognize, even if the person is merely unknown and his standing has not been ascertained.”

The correct judgment, however, is to say of such a man, “His very identity is unknown,” as the foregoing examples demonstrate. Allah knows best.

In short, Ibn Ḥibbān’s declarations of reliability must be received with considerable reserve and caution, for he often authenticated transmitters whom the scholars deem unknown. This, nevertheless, is not an absolute rule, as Shaykh al-Muʿallimī has clarified in al-Tankīl 1/437–438, along with my own comments there.

For further details see my refutation of Shaykh al-Ḥabashī, who relies heavily on transmitters whose reliability is affirmed by Ibn Ḥibbān despite their anonymity (pp. 18–21).

It should likewise be stressed—and this is an important point I have learned through long engagement with this science, one that few have remarked upon and that most students overlook—that any transmitter whom Ibn Ḥibbān has declared reliable, from whom a number of trustworthy narrators have related, and whose narrations contain nothing objectionable, is deemed truthful and his reports may be cited as proof.

On that basis I have strengthened a number of ḥadiths of this type—for example, the report about kneading (al-ʿajn) during the prayer—so that some beginners in this field have imagined that I