of Imam al-Nawawi that ablution is obligatory after contact with such camels, presenting this as a “difficulty” that would turn those weak in knowledge and the blind imitators of the schools away from acting on the hadith. He then commented on al-Nawawi’s view, saying:
“Yet one may ask: How could the hadith of Jabir and al-Baraʾ have escaped the notice of the Rightly Guided Caliphs…?” and so forth.

I answered him with a proof that demolishes this objection at its very root—as you will see in its proper place. The result was that the author, may Allah reward him, yielded to the truth and deleted the alleged difficulty, yet he made no mention of the one who had been the cause of that correction!

There is another example. I had criticized him for prefacing the hadith, “The religion Allah loves most is the easy, tolerant ḥanīfiyyah,” with the tentative wording that signals a weak report. I demonstrated that the hadith is sound (ḥasan) by virtue of corroborating chains and obliged him to acknowledge this, as you will see on page 38. He then fell into a new error—graver than the first in one respect—by attributing the hadith to Muslim, even though it is not found in Sahih Muslim at all. Nevertheless, this shows that he had read my critique of his treatment of the hadith and tried to correct his stance, with the outcome you have just seen!

In short, I had hoped that the author—may Allah preserve him—would comply with my request and fulfill the wish I placed in the introduction to the first edition, which I had shown him beforehand, as noted earlier: namely, that he “re-examine what he has written so far, rectify the errors that have become clear to him, and proceed slowly before issuing the remaining parts of the book.”

I was hoping for that from him, but the hope was dashed. The man proceeded to release the rest of the book according to the same criticized method he had followed in the initial volumes, without adhering to those scholarly principles I had sent him and without any amendment or change in