One of them is for someone to notice that a given transmitter has been declared trustworthy, that his honesty and probity have been attested, or that his reports have been included in the Ṣaḥīḥ, and then to treat everything he narrates as meeting the standards of that Ṣaḥīḥ (1).

This is a clear mistake, for a report attains those standards only when it is free of hidden defects, irregularities (2), and objectionable features and is corroborated by others. If any of those flaws are present—even partially—the report is neither sound nor does it satisfy the criteria of a Ṣaḥīḥ.

Whoever reflects on the statements of al-Bukhārī and his peers when they critique the narrations of transmitters whose reports they themselves include in their Ṣaḥīḥ will recognise their mastery and standing in this discipline, and he will clearly grasp the truth of what we have just said (3).

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The second kind (4) of error is to hear that a transmitter has been criticised in some of his narrations, or judged weak with regard to a particular teacher or ḥadith, and then to use that as a reason to discredit everything he relates wherever it is found (5), as some later proponents of the Ẓāhirī school and others are wont to do (6).