this study—many errors, some of them extremely serious, the likes of which I never imagined were there. I therefore saw it as mandatory to expose them, and—by Allah’s grace and favor—I have succeeded in doing so.

Perhaps it will be useful to sketch the nature of those errors in summary form, so that the reader may gain a general idea of them and thereby realize the importance of these annotations. I say:

These errors may be roughly grouped as follows:

1. Numerous hadiths over which the author passes in silence even though they are weak.
2. Other hadiths he declares sound, whereas close examination shows them to be feeble.
3. Hadiths he labels weak even though they are authentic, or possess other sound chains of transmission.
4. Hadiths he attributes to collections other than the two Sahihs, although they are actually found in both of them or in one of the two.
5. Hadiths he cites as being in one or both of the two Sahihs—and elsewhere—when in fact they have no basis in either of them.
6. Hadiths he reproduces that are not found in any of the books of Sunnah.
7. Presenting a hadith through the route of a Companion he names, citing a number of hadith scholars, while for some of those same scholars the narration is traced back to a different Companion, or to more than one.
8. Attributing a hadith to its source and remaining silent, even though that very source immediately follows it with remarks that undermine its authenticity.
9. Failing to track down the proofs for legal questions: he often presents issues without any supporting evidence; at times he argues by analogy when an authentic hadith exists on the matter, and at other times he adduces a general proof when a specific proof is available.