also know this] (1): the point (2) is that people have described them in such terms since those early times—the era of the Successors and their followers, (3 [as some of this is established either from al-Sha‘bī, or it may be the words of Abd al-Rahman. On either supposition, the point is established, for Abd al-Rahman lived in the generation following the Successors. We have mentioned this only because Abd al-Rahman] 3) (3)—and many others cannot be relied upon solely on the basis of their individual reports, whether because of poor memory or because they are suspected (4) of embellishing hadith, even though they may possess knowledge and familiarity with various branches of learning. Their reports may nevertheless be used (5) for corroborative support and as parallel narrations, as in the case of Muqātil ibn Sulaymān, Muhammad ibn Umar al-Wāqidī, and others like them. A multiplicity of testimonies and reports may yield certain knowledge even when not every reporter is reliable and accurate in memory (6), so that certain knowledge of what mass-transmitted reports convey is attained even if the reporters are sinful persons, provided there has been no mutual awareness (7) or collusion among them. A true statement supported by evidence is accepted from whoever utters it, even when it would not be accepted merely on the reporter’s word.

It is for this reason that we have cited what Abd al-Rahman ibn Mālik ibn Mighwal related. The most that can be said of it is that he stated it as an observation, not as a transmitted report (8). This Abd al-Rahman narrates from his father, from al-Amash, and from