Malik said, “This is a fabrication.”

Imam Ahmad judged it weak, as recorded in Tadhhib al-Sunan. Al-Nasa’i remarked, “It is a contradictory report,” and al-Hafiz (Ibn Hajar) faulted it for that reason in Bulugh al-Maram, saying, “Its transmitters are trustworthy, yet it is contradictory, and Malik rejected it.”

Al-Hafiz further detailed the contradiction in al-Talkhis 6/472; whoever wishes may consult it there.

Subsequently it became clear to me that the hadith is authentic and that the contradiction mentioned is of the kind that does not impair its soundness, for some of its chains are free of it. I demonstrated this in Irwa’ al-Ghalil 960 with an explanation that leaves no room for doubt about its authenticity.

Interpreting the hadith as a prohibition of fasting Saturday only when it is singled out is contradicted by his words, “except for what has been made obligatory upon you.” For, as Ibn al-Qayyim states in Tadhhib al-Sunan, “This clause proves that fasting on Saturday is forbidden outside obligatory fasts, whether one fasts it alone or together with another day, because an exception presupposes inclusion. It follows that the prohibition covers every form of fasting on Saturday save the obligatory fast. Had the prohibition concerned only the solitary fast, he would have said: ‘Do not fast Saturday unless you fast a day before it or a day after it,’ just as he said concerning Friday. Since he restricted the permitted case to the obligatory fast, it is clear that the prohibition applies to everything else.”

I add: Moreover, if combining Saturday with another day were not prohibited, the hadith would more fittingly have excepted that form rather than the obligatory fast, for the likelihood of the hadith encompassing the obligatory fast is more remote than its encompassing the combined form. Therefore, when only the obligatory fast is exempted, this indicates that nothing else is exempted, just as no