—while al-Taqrīb, which he never even mentioned, states: “Nabhān is maqbūl, from the third tier.” Al-Mubārakfūrī reproduces that verdict at the very beginning of his commentary on the ḥadīth, and the passage from Fatḥ al-Bārī at its end. If the latter counts as an endorsement, then the former must count as an endorsement as well. In reality, al-Mubārakfūrī is nothing more than a transmitter; he was not engaged in critical research that would lead him to favor one judgment over another—unlike al-Sindī. That is precisely why al-Sindī suppressed the statement in al-Taqrīb, for he knew it would weaken the ḥadīth: “maqbūl” in this context means that Nabhān’s reports are weak whenever he narrates alone, for he has no corroborating transmitter. Hence al-Sindī follows the notorious Jewish maxim, “The end justifies the means.” Were it not for that motive he would have quoted the verdict as well and tried to harmonize the two opinions; but since he knew—as I believe—that a criticism outweighs a commendation, especially when the commendation itself needs to be substantiated, he considered retreat to be half of bravery, as the saying goes in some lands, and thus opted for concealment. Allah is the One whose help is sought.

Fourth: Al-Sindī cites Nabhān’s entry from the Tahdhīb works of al-Mizzī and Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, where it is said that Ibn Ḥibbān listed him in al-Thiqat. This insinuates to the reader that those two scholars themselves declared him reliable, which is not the case, as any scholar acquainted with their method knows: they simply record whatever has been said about a narrator, whether criticism or praise. For that very reason al-Ḥāfiẓ composed his aforementioned Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb: there he exercises independent judgment rather than mere transmission, giving his considered view of a narrator in the fewest possible words. A detailed investigation of this is beyond our present scope, but it should suffice the intelligent, fair-minded reader as an illustration that al-Ḥāfiẓ who… ⦗70⦘