—or “he narrated,” “it has come,” and other active-voice expressions—is regarded as sound up to the transmitter from whom al-Bukhārī suspended it; whatever follows in the chain must then be assessed. By contrast, any suspension couched in a tentative form—such as “it was said,” “it is reported,” “it is narrated,” “it is mentioned,” and the like, where the verb is in the passive voice—neither proves authenticity nor rules it out. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr, in his abridgement of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s Introduction, explained this point, adding, “Such suspensions do occur and may well be authentic; some of them were even recorded by Muslim.” Ibn Ḥajar likewise states in the introduction to Fatḥ al-Bārī, immediately after discussing the first category: “The second category—the tentative formulation—does not establish soundness up to the authority from whom it was suspended; among them are narrations that are authentic and others that are not ….”