the image. He should not be disparaged on that account; rather, this particular view alone should not be accepted from him.’”

Abū Mūsā said: “He meant that scarcely any imam is without a lapse. If an imam were abandoned because of his lapse, many imams would be abandoned. This should not be done.”

He said: “With his firm adherence to the Sunnah, his reverence for hadith, and his care not to depart from it, he criticized the hadith of Nuʿaym ibn Hammād, which he narrated through his chain of transmission concerning the descent