al-A‘mash, who said: Habīb ibn Abī Thābit said, “If a man related a hadith to me from you, I would not hesitate to narrate it from you”—meaning that he would not hesitate to conceal the intermediary in its transmission.

Abū Bakr said: Our scholars versed in transmitted reports scarcely accept a report like this as evidence, especially when it concerns a matter of this kind—one that, if established, would require knowledge, rather than a matter requiring action, whose authenticity and soundness may be inferred through evidence drawn from reasoning, analogy, and a specific comparison drawn from the teachings of