their parroting of al-Ḥāfiẓ in that single word avails them nothing, for he himself ruled the ḥadith to be “a false report,” as we already cited from his Lisān. This is but one of many proofs that these people follow their whims, not the truth. Had they been truth-seekers they would have accepted the ḥāfiẓ’s verdict—which agrees with al-Dhahabī and the other critical scholars—instead of fastening onto his isolated remark that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is merely “weak,” wielding it against al-Dhahabī, deceiving people about the ḥadith, and presenting it as though it belonged to the class over which the scholars differed, so that they might concoct a novel opinion tailored to a passing comment one ḥāfiẓ made about a single narrator!

Look at what they then said: “A report transmitted by someone in such a condition, according to the hadith scholars, is neither fabricated nor severely weak; rather, it belongs to the category that may be acted upon in matters of virtue.”

I say: this statement collapses on two grounds. First, it rests on the assumption that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān is only weak, whereas he is in fact extremely weak, as has been shown—and one of the critical ḥuffāẓ will shortly state this explicitly. Second, it clashes with the judgement of al-Ḥāfiẓ—and of the ḥuffāẓ in general—that the ḥadith is false, as cited earlier. How could they dare oppose them, especially after one of them admitted in al-Taʿqīb al-Ḥathīth (21) that he lacks the authority to declare ḥadith sound or weak? Perhaps he said that out of humility! Yet here he assigns himself a status that, in his view, entitles him to independent investigation even if it means contradicting all those masters and critics. This is confirmed by his further statement, following what has just been quoted: “Thus, in the case of this ḥadith we side with those who did not…”