so this second chain reinforces the first. This is an explicit—or virtually explicit—admission that the initial route is not strong, and I had already explained its weakness long ago in my Sahih Abi Dawud, no. 2120. Second: As for his declaring all three strands—Abu Salih, Jaʿda, and Yazid ibn Abi Ziyad—weak, I concede that each isnad taken separately is defective. But why did the Shaykh disregard the well-established principle that multiple weak chains may strengthen one another, especially when al-Hafiz al-Iraqi graded one of those very strands hasan? Is it partisanship for a school of thought? Or is it eagerness to appear contrarian so that people will not spread what some acquaintances of his say—and what many of his own marginal notes suggest—that most of his rulings are actually drawn from Albani’s writings? If what I have set out still fails to show the mistake in his weakening of the hadith, we have placed immediately afterward in the main text a strong corroborating report from Aisha, and a similar narration from Abu Saʿid al-Khudri that follows it. Perhaps these will convince him and bring him back to the correct view, God willing.