“Al-Kadimi has been accused of fabricating reports.”

Ibn Ḥibbān said, “He may have forged more than a thousand ḥadiths.”

Concerning his teacher ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ghifārī, al-Dhahabī remarked, “He is ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī ʿAmr al-Madani. Because of his weakness, narrators conceal his name in chains. Ibn Ḥibbān labelled him a forger, and Ibn ʿAdī cited two traditions in praise of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar that he transmitted—both are false. Al-Ḥākim said: He relates fabricated reports from a host of weak narrators.”

I say: The present narration is one of them, for his teacher ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Bakr—the nephew of Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir—is weak, as al-Dhahabī states in al-Mīzān.

As for the second route, Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr recorded it in al-Istidhkār through Abū al-Zubayr. Although, as al-Suyūṭī notes in al-Laʾālī 2/63, this is the soundest chain for the report, Ibn Ḥajar nevertheless ruled, “This ḥadith is extremely munkar (objectionable).” Al-Suyūṭī himself quoted this verdict without contesting it. In the same context Ibn Ḥajar criticized al-Faḍl ibn al-Ḥabbāb, saying, “Perhaps he narrated it after his books were burned.”

I add that the report is further flawed by Abū al-Zubayr’s use of the ambiguous transmission formula ʿan, for he is a mudallis. Both Ibn Ḥajar and Ibn al-ʿAjamī list him among the mudallisin, stating, “He is well known for tadlīs.”

Thus all the remaining chains of this ḥadith revolve around narrators who are either abandoned or unknown, and