314 – He said, “Yes.”

315 – I continued, “Let me test you with narrations whose chains are acknowledged as sound. Picture Abu Salama in Madinah telling you that he heard Jabir ibn ʿAbd Allah relate from the Prophet ﷺ concerning the virtue of Abu Salama and of Jabir. Then imagine al-Zuhri reporting that he heard Ibn al-Musayyib say, ‘I heard ʿUmar—or Abu Saʿid al-Khudri—say, “I heard the Prophet ﷺ….”’ Next, let Abu Isḥaq al-Shaybani say, ‘I heard al-Shaʿbi—or Ibrāhīm al-Taymī—one of them saying, “I heard al-Barāʾ ibn ʿAzib,” or, “I heard a Companion of the Prophet ﷺ whose name he mentions….”’ Finally, have Ayyub narrate from al-Hasan al-Basri that he said, ‘I heard Abu Hurayra—or another Companion of the Prophet ﷺ—say, “I heard the Prophet ﷺ declare such-and-such lawful or unlawful.”’ Would this concurrence, in your estimation, furnish binding proof?”

316 – He replied, “Yes, it would.”

317 – I said to him, “According to you, is it not possible that al-Zuhri might err with respect to Ibn al-Musayyib, and Ibn al-Musayyib with respect to the one above him; and that Ayyub might err about al-Hasan, and al-Hasan about the one above him?”

318 – He said, “And if I were to answer, ‘Yes, it is possible’?”

319 – I responded, “Then you oblige yourself to uphold a solitary report in which the possibility of error exists at every link—from the narrator you meet, to the one beneath the next, and to the one above him, all below the rank of the Prophet’s Companions—yet you reject a solitary report that comes directly from a Companion, even though the Companions surpass all who came after them. You thus discard a report on the grounds that the best of people might be mistaken, while accepting it from those whose virtue does not approach theirs. Every one of these later narrators merely reports from someone above him, and that person from someone above him, until the report reaches the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. This is precisely the method you have denounced!”