a condition he himself makes explicit in the introduction to Taqrīb. Likewise, his statement in Fatḥ that “its chain of transmission is strong” is itself not strong, for it contradicts what he wrote in Taqrīb and the established principles of ḥadīth criticism, as I have demonstrated in al-Daʿīfa. Moreover, calling the narrator “maqbūl,” though it does support declaring the ḥadīth weak, is still unacceptable; he should have said “majhūl,” because— as noted earlier—al-Zuhrī alone reports from him, and the claim found in Tahdhīb that Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the client of the family of Ṭalḥa, also narrated from him is not reliable. Al-Bayhaqī established this, and I clarified it there in al-Daʿīfa. That discussion constitutes a detailed refutation of al-Ḥāfiẓ himself and of others who preceded him or blindly followed him, such as al-Tuwaijrī and the rest who have departed from sound research and from the verdicts of the other imams—among them Imām Aḥmad, as will be mentioned later. For that very reason al-Ḥāfiẓ had no choice but to state elsewhere in Fatḥ (1/550):

“This is a ḥadīth about whose authenticity there is disagreement.”

Was Shaykh al-Tuwaijrī aware of this admission by al-Ḥāfiẓ, or was he ignorant of it? If he did know it, why does he, whenever he cites this ḥadīth, content himself with naming the lenient scholars who authenticated it and with rebuffing those who disagree by saying (p. 154):

“No attention should be paid to anyone who criticizes it without a sound, authoritative proof.”

Such were his words—may Allah guide him—directed at refuting me, for I had graded the ḥadīth weak because of the narrator’s anonymity in Irwāʾ at the place cited above. Is this the way…

⦗64⦘