Ibn Maʿin said: “I do not know him.” I asked my father about him, and he said: “A shaykh.” Al-Hafiz said in al-Tahdhib: “I say: Ibn Hibban mentioned him in al-Thiqat, and Uthman ibn Saʿid al-Darimi said: ‘Trustworthy.’ Ibn ʿAdi said: ‘Because of the scarcity of his hadiths, Ibn Maʿin did not know him; and I hope that there is no harm in him.’”

I say: The hadith of one such as him is good, Allah willing. All its other narrators are among the narrators of the Sahih collections, apart from Ahmad ibn al-Hasan al-Sayrafi, who is trustworthy. Al-Daraqutni and al-Khatib declared him trustworthy, as recorded in the latter’s Tarikh (4/82–84). Al-Hafiz referred to this hadith in al-Talkhis and said (p. 25): “Ibn Hibban declared it authentic through the route of this Hatim, and Uthman al-Darimi declared him trustworthy.”

Al-Nasaʾi also narrated the hadith through this route, saying: “ʿAmr ibn Mansur informed us; al-Haytham ibn Kharijah informed us,” with the same chain. Ibn Hazm mentioned it (9/172) and declared it defective, saying: “Hatim ibn Hurayth is unknown.” This is what he said. It seems that he either did not come across al-Darimi’s declaration that he was trustworthy, or did not regard it as significant. I therefore do not know what basis he had for this, especially in view of Ibn ʿAdi’s statement: “There is no harm in him.”

Know that the first part of the hadith—“A borrowed article must be returned”—has been narrated through another route from Abu Umamah, as well as through other routes from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Ibn Hazm mentioned them and declared them all weak, but he overlooked the first route, with the first wording, in Ahmad; it is authentic according to us, as you have learned. This is despite the fact that Ibn Hazm is known not to regard as proof a report in which the Companion is not named, contrary to the majority. No rational person can doubt that, even if it be said that the individual routes are not free of weakness, their combined force indicates that the hadith has a genuine, firmly established basis—especially when the chain—