This further shows that al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar reproduced al-Dhahabī’s remark in Lisān al-Mīzān even though, as we have already seen, he states in al-Taʿjīl that the man is “unknown.” The two observations therefore do not contradict one another.

Even if we were to concede that Ibn Jurayj explicitly declared, “I heard it from Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit,” the ḥadīth would still not stand, for another defect remains: the link between Ḥabīb and ʿĀṣim is likewise broken, as both Ibn Maʿīn and Abū Ḥātim have affirmed. Whether the missing intermediary is indeed ʿAmr ibn Khālid al-Wāsiṭī or someone else, the report is disconnected and cannot be accepted, because that intermediary is unknown.

As for Shaykh Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir’s objection in his notes on the Musnad—namely, that the two men definitely met, so “how can we claim Ḥabīb did not hear this ḥadīth from him?”—such reasoning would apply only if Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit were not a mudallis. Since he is well known for tadlīs, mere contemporaneity and the fact that they met do not suffice; a mudallis must explicitly state that he heard the narration from the person he reports from for his transmission to be judged sound and acceptable. The scholars are unanimous on this point, and the respected Shaykh is surely aware of it. I therefore cannot see how he ruled the chain connected on the basis of contemporaneity alone, despite knowing that the condition is that the narrator not be a mudallis. See the introduction to Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim; perhaps, when writing, he did not recall that Ḥabīb is a mudallis. Al-Ḥāfiẓ says of him in al-Taqrīb: “Reliable, a distinguished jurist, but he was given to frequent mursal reports and tadlīs.”