recorded in his Tahdhīb Ibn Ḥibbān’s endorsement of the narrator, yet he did not adopt that verdict in his Taqrīb; instead he qualified him by saying: “maqbūl,” meaning acceptable when supported, but weak when he narrates in isolation—as is the case here. That is precisely how he uses the term, as he states in his introduction.

Fifth: Al-Sindī then copied from al-Mizzī’s Tahdhīb the two reports whose weakness, as noted earlier, astonished Imām Aḥmad—one of them being the ḥadīth: “Are you two blind?” After quoting them he wrote:

“I say: From the drift of his remarks it is clear that Imām al-Mizzī—may Allah have mercy on him—treats these aḥādīth (so he puts it) cited in Nabhān’s biography as valid proof, and that he regards Nabhān as trustworthy, adducing the fact that al-Nasāʾī transmitted the second of his narrations through additional chains.”

I reply: This contains four fabrications against al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Mizzī.

First: the allegation that he relies on the two cited reports—while the plural “aḥādīth” is an obvious exaggeration—for al-Ḥāfiẓ did no more than list them with their isnāds to show that the narrator has nothing else in the Sunan collections. After that he merely cited al-Tirmidhī’s authentication of them and added, “Thus it reached us through an elevated substitute.” (1)