It may therefore be asked:

As for what is narrated by the likes of Abū Nuaym, al-Thalabī, al-Naqqāsh, and others (1), do you accept it unconditionally? Or do you reject it unconditionally? Or do you accept it when it favors you [not when it is against you] (2), yet reject it when it is against you? If you accept it (3) unconditionally, those works contain many hadiths concerning the virtues (4) of Abū Bakr, Umar, and Uthmān that contradict your position.

At the beginning of al-Hilya, Abū Nuaym narrated hadiths concerning the virtues of the Companions, and in his book on the merits of Abū Bakr, Umar, Uthmān, and Alī, some of which are sound and others weak—or even rejected (5). He was well versed in hadith and in the material he transmitted. Yet he and others like him would narrate whatever pertained to a given topic; a report is not deemed established merely because he narrated it. In this respect, he was like an exegete who transmits people’s statements on Quranic exegesis, a jurist who records the various opinions in jurisprudence, or an author who presents people’s arguments, intending simply to record what they had said (6), even though much of it is not regarded as sound but is, rather, regarded as weak. For he says: “I have transmitted what others have stated, so the responsibility (7) rests upon the one who made the statement, not upon the transmitter.”

The same is true of many who wrote about the virtues of acts of worship, the virtues of particular times, and other