This, however, is open to objection, for the uprightness of the secondary transmitter (1) presupposes his veracity, and the primary transmitter’s failure to recall the report does not negate that (2); consequently, the one who affirms (3) is given precedence over the one who denies.

As for likening this situation to courtroom testimony, the analogy is invalid, because the evidence of a subsidiary witness is not accepted when the testimony of the principal witness is obtainable, whereas narration does not operate under that restriction; hence the two cases diverge (4).

[One Who Narrated and Then Forgot]

In this category (5) al-Daraqutni authored a separate work entitled Man Ḥaddatha wa-Nasiya (Those Who Narrated and Then Forgot) (6). That book contains material which bolsters the sound position, for many scholars transmitted ḥadīths and, when those reports were later read back to them, could no longer remember them (7). Nevertheless—because they trusted the narrators who had taken the reports from them (8)—they themselves began to relate those very ḥadīths, citing the person who had transmitted them from them, on their own authority (9).

One example is the ḥadīth transmitted by Suhayl ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah—traced back to the Prophet—concerning the case of a single witness accompanied by an oath.