“He practised concealment in transmission.” Ibn Ḥibbān likewise states (section 10): “Everything that he narrated from ʿIkrimah, he had heard from Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Yaḥyā, from Dāwūd ibn al-Ḥuṣayn, from him; then he concealed the intermediary when attributing it to ʿIkrimah.”

Accordingly, al-Ḥāfiẓ stated categorically in al-Taqrīb that he practised concealment in transmission, saying: “Truthful; accused of Qadari beliefs (denial of divine decree); he practised concealment in transmission and deteriorated in his later years.”

I say: These are explicit texts establishing that ʿAbbād practised concealment in transmission. How did Shaykh Aḥmad answer this? He said (5/109): “It is an accusation ascribed to him on the basis of certain reported statements which we do not consider sound or tenable.” He then cited Abū Ḥātim’s previously mentioned statement in section 5: “We believe that he took these hadiths from Ibn Abī Yaḥyā …” Then he cited Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd’s statement: “I said to ʿAbbād, ‘Did you hear the hadith …?’ ʿAbbād replied, ‘Ibn Abī Yaḥyā related them from Dāwūd, from ʿIkrimah.’” Shaykh Aḥmad said:

“These are statements which give the impression of concealment in transmission (!) and have led many hadith scholars to mistakenly think that he took these hadiths from Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Yaḥyā. Indeed, some works, such as al-Mīzān and al-Tahdhīb, when citing some of these statements, did not say, ‘Ibn Abī Yaḥyā,’ but rather, ‘Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Yaḥyā.’ Ibrāhīm is deemed very weak by them. Thus, they made a grave error and ascribed to the man concealment in transmission through a weak narrator, of which he is innocent. Such concealment in transmission is highly improbable, if not inconceivable. For they alleged that he concealed the name of a later narrator who died in 184 AH; how could ʿAbbād conceal a narrator who was still alive and younger than some of his own pupils?!”