• (4/ 83): In the hadith recorded by Abū Dāwūd, “Tuesday is the day of blood, and it contains an hour when it does not stop flowing,” the two editors added at the end: “fīhā al-dam (the blood during it).” This is a peculiar addition found neither in their manuscript source nor in the Sunan. The hadith is quoted from Abū Dāwūd without this addition in al-Baghawī’s Sharh al-Sunnah (12/ 151) and al-Bayhaqī’s al-Sunan al-Kubrā (9/ 340). Did the two editors intend this addition to supply something missing from the wording of the hadith?!

Do not suppose that their interventions were confined to hadiths, reports, and statements, as they claimed in the passage quoted above. Rather, they followed Shaykh al-Fiqī in altering the text and correcting the author’s wording whenever they imagined a defect in it, without drawing attention to their intervention. Examples include:

• (4/ 179): “Extracting it and undoing it (tabtīl).” In the al-Risāla edition (4/ 114): “Extracting it and undoing it (ibtāl).” It seems the editors could not bear to see Ibn al-Qayyim use a colloquial expression, so they changed it without mentioning their intervention or the reading in their manuscript source.

• (4/ 213): “What al-Tirmidhī narrated on the authority of ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Umar: that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, took the hand of a man afflicted with leprosy ... . Ibn Mājah also narrated it on the authority of Jābir ibn ‘Abd Allāh.” In fact, both al-Tirmidhī and Ibn Mājah narrated it on the authority of Jābir. The error arose in the author’s wording only because he relied on al-Hamawī’s account. The two editors of the al-Risāla edition therefore put “Jābir” in the text in place of “‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Umar,” noting the original reading and identifying it as an error. This was commendable, despite its shortcomings. However, when they realized how awkward the resulting passage had become—with “What al-Tirmidhī narrated on the authority of Jābir” before the hadith, and “Ibn Mājah also narrated it on the authority of Jābir ibn ‘Abd Allāh” after it—they deleted the final sentence, “Ibn Mājah also narrated it ...”, and the rest, from the text without drawing attention to this second intervention. This, of course, was not commendable!