let alone those superior to them, such as Muhammad ibn Sīrīn, al-Qāsim ibn Muhammad, Sa‘īd ibn al-Musayyab, ‘Ubayda al-Salmānī, ‘Alqama, al-Aswad, or others like them. The only concern regarding any one of them is the possibility of error, for error and forgetfulness frequently affect human beings.

Among the masters of hadith are those whom people have known to be exceptionally free of such failings, as they knew of al-Sha‘bī, al-Zuhrī, ‘Urwa, Qatāda, al-Thawrī, and their peers—especially al-Zuhrī in his time and al-Thawrī in his. Indeed, one might say: “No error is known on the part of Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, despite the abundance of his hadith and the vast extent of his memorization.”

“The point” is that when a lengthy hadith is transmitted, for example, through two independent channels without collusion, it cannot be the product of error, just as it cannot be a lie. An error cannot account for an entire lengthy narrative containing varied details; it can only affect some part of it. Thus, if one person relates a lengthy narrative containing varied details, and another relates it just as the first did, without collusion, it is impossible for the whole of it to be erroneous, just as it is impossible for the whole of it to be fabricated without collusion.

For this reason, errors in such accounts occur only in some details of the events related. An example is the hadith concerning the Prophet’s purchase of a camel from Jābir, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Anyone who examines its chains of transmission knows with certainty that the hadith is authentic, even though its transmitters differed over the price. Al-Bukhārī explained this in his Sahīh.

Indeed, the great majority of the reports in al-Bukhārī and Muslim can be affirmed with certainty to have been spoken by the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, because most of them are of this kind, and because the scholars have received them with acceptance and affirmed their truth;