and exceptionally perceptive. Al-Hakim said, “Ibn Hibban was one of the great repositories of knowledge—of language, hadith, and exhortation—and was among the most intelligent of men.”

Al-Hakim’s Sahih (al-Mustadrak)

Comparable to it is the Sahih of al-Hakim, Abu ʿAbd Allah al-Naysaburi, the reliable ḥāfiẓ, known as al-Mustadrak. A measure of leniency, however, made its way into his book, and the scholars reproached him for it. They stated that the compilations of Ibn Khuzaymah and Ibn Hibban are more accurate and stronger than al-Hakim’s, and finer and more precise in both their chains of transmission and their wordings.

Al-Mukhtārah of al-Maqdisi

Likewise, there is al-Mukhtārah by the ḥāfiẓ Ḍiyāʾ al-Din al-Maqdisi, and it too