He was also asked—may Allah be pleased with him:
Were al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasā’ī, Ibn Mājah, Abū Dāwūd al-Tayālisī, al-Dārimī, al-Bazzār, al-Dāraqutnī, al-Bayhaqī, Ibn Khuzaymah and Abū Ya‘lā al-Mawsilī independent jurists who did not follow the authority of any of the imams, or did they follow the authority of others? Did any of them adhere to the school of Abū Hanīfah?
If the following is found in Mālik’s Muwatta’:
“From Yahyā ibn Sa‘īd, from Ibrāhīm ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hārith al-Taymī, from ‘Ā’ishah,”
and the following is found in al-Bukhārī:
“Mu‘ādh ibn Fadālah narrated to me, saying: ‘Hishām narrated to us from Yahyā—that is, Ibn Abī Kathīr—from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah,’”
can it be said that the latter is more authentic than the former in the Muwatta’?
If a hadith appears in al-Bukhārī with one chain of transmission and in the Muwatta’ with another, can it be said that the version in al-Bukhārī is more authentic? And if we transmit a hadith through narrators used by al-Bukhārī, but al-Bukhārī did not include it in his Sahīh, can it be said that it is on a par with what is in the Sahīh?