and inadvertent error. Anyone acquainted with the Companions—such as Ibn Masʿūd, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, Ibn ʿUmar, Jābir, Abū Saʿīd, Abū Hurayrah, and others—knows with certainty that not one of them would ever deliberately fabricate a report about the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, let alone those whose rank was even higher. This is as self-evident as a man’s knowledge, after long and intimate experience, that a particular acquaintance is not the sort who steals people’s wealth, ambushes travelers, or gives perjured testimony, and the like.
The same holds true for the Successors in Medina, Mecca, Syria, and Basra. Whoever has come to know men such as Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Sammān (1), al-Aʿraj (2), Sulaymān ibn Yasār (3), Zayd ibn Aslam, and their peers is absolutely certain that they too were not among those who intentionally lie in hadith,
(1) Abu Salih al-Samman: He was Dhakwan al-Madani. He studied under some of the Companions, witnessed the siege of the house [of Caliph Uthman], and al-A'mash transmitted one thousand hadiths from him. Ahmad said: “He was utterly trustworthy.” He died in 101 AH.
(2) Al-A'raj: Abd al-Rahman ibn Hurmuz al-Madani, the Quran reciter. He studied under some of the Companions, and al-Zuhri, Abu al-Zubayr Muhammad ibn Muslim al-Makki, and Abu al-Zinad al-Madani transmitted from him. Al-Bukhari said: “The most authentic chain of transmission is Abu al-Zinad, from al-A'raj, from Abu Hurayrah.” Al-A'raj died in Alexandria in 117 AH.
(3) Sulayman ibn Yasar al-Madani, the freedman of Maymunah, was one of the seven jurists. He studied under some of the Companions, and Qatadah, al-Zuhri, and Amr ibn Shu'ayb, the grandson of Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn al-As, transmitted from him. He died in 100 AH, or shortly thereafter, at the age of seventy-three.