First: His claim that the report is supported “by sound chains” is baseless on two grounds.

1. The report has only a single chain of transmission.
2. That very chain is not sound, for Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr and al-Hāfiẓ ruled it defective on account of its being mursal, as noted in the book (p. 86)—and the shaykh himself concedes this.

Second: How can it possess “sound chains” when he states immediately afterwards, “It is a mursal report according to the sound opinion”?

These two statements are mutually contradictory; they cannot coexist in the mind of anyone who has even inhaled the faintest scent of this noble science. The matter is perfectly plain and needs no further explanation.

In view of all this, am I not entitled to say: when a man displays such ignorance of hadith methodology and such inability to distinguish between authentic and weak reports—even by mere imitation, which, as the specialists affirm, is ignorance itself—what business has he inserting himself among the scholars and jurists, let alone refuting them and mocking their views? I do not mean myself—though I hope to be gathered in their company—but rather the vast body of scholars, early and later, whose position, refuting his own, the shaykh has ignored, as has already been shown.

His attitude toward them brings to mind the poet’s line:

When the two-year-old camel is yoked beside the fully grown,
it cannot match the charge of the towering veterans. [78]