considered conclusive proof by unanimous agreement, with no dissent whatsoever—were it not for sectarian partisanship, personal whims, and ignorance of this great principle that Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah and the scholars and guardians of ḥadith championed, by which they rescued hundreds of narrations from the weakness demanded by their individual isnāds.

One illustration is the ḥadith of ṣalāt al-tasabīḥ (the Prayer of Glorification). Careful study of its various routes shows that no single chain is sound; nevertheless, when all the routes are combined the ḥadith is authentic. A number of ḥuffāẓ have declared it ṣaḥīḥ—or at the very least ḥasan—among them al-Ājurrī, Ibn Mandah, al-Khaṭīb, Abū Bakr al-Samʿānī, al-Mundhirī, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, al-Nawawī, al-Subkī, and others. Al-Bayhaqī is also of this number: he cited it in Shuʿab al-Īmān (1/247) through a weak chain from Abū Rāfiʿ and then remarked,

“ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Mubārak used to perform it, and the righteous have passed it down from one another; this lends strength to the marfūʿ report. Allah is the giver of success.”

Al-Ḥākim had already said the same in al-Mustadrak (1/319):

“One of the proofs for the soundness of this ḥadith is that the leading scholars, from the generation of the successors of the Successors up to our own day, have practiced it regularly, taught it to the people, and among them is ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Mubārak….”

He then supplied his chain back to Ibn al-Mubārak and added,

“Its transmitters from Ibn al-Mubārak are trustworthy, and ʿAbdullāh is not suspected of teaching anything that was not sound in his view.”

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