Ikrimah?” He replied: “Ibn Abī Yaḥyā narrated them from Dāwūd, from Ikrimah.” This clearly shows that Yaḥyā had doubts—at the very least—whether ʿAbbād had heard the hadiths in question from Ikrimah, and so he asked him whether he had heard them from him. Yet ʿAbbād did not give an answer that would remove the doubt; rather, he gave one that confirmed it, saying, “Ibrāhīm narrated them …” He did not say, “He narrated them to me.” This establishes that ʿAbbād practised concealment in transmission. Otherwise, what prevented him from explicitly stating that he had heard them—even if only by saying, “Yes”—instead of speaking in the manner of politicians, whose words are not explicit answers and admit several possible meanings?

This is precisely the difficulty into which, in my view, the distinguished scholar Aḥmad Shākir himself fell. At the end of his discussion, he said:

“If these questions—meaning, Yaḥyā’s questions to ʿAbbād—and these answers from ʿAbbād are authentic, then the more likely correct explanation would be that he said: ‘Ibn Abī Yaḥyā and Dāwūd ibn al-Ḥuṣayn narrated them from Ikrimah,’ intending thereby to strengthen his own report by showing that Dāwūd ibn al-Ḥuṣayn and Muḥammad ibn Abī Yaḥyā also narrated these hadiths from Ikrimah, just as he did—not that he intended to establish against himself an instance of concealment in transmission for which there was no need!”

I say: Yes—if he had been free to choose and could have avoided establishing concealment in transmission against himself, he would not have done so. But once Imam Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd asked him whether he had heard them—and the assumption is that he had heard them, as the Shaykh claims—what prevented him from stating this explicitly in answer to the Imam’s question, rather than saying that Ibn Abī Yaḥyā and Dāwūd had corroborated his narration from Ikrimah? How astonishing that the Shaykh should accept such an interpretation, when it is furthest from being an answer to the question—especially since it departs from the wording of the report itself. The report says: “Ibn Abī Yaḥyā narrated them from Dāwūd,” whereas the Shaykh says: “Ibn Abī Yaḥyā and Dāwūd”!

It may be said that the Shaykh permitted himself this interpretation, contrary to the report, because he doubted its authenticity, as indicated by his earlier statement, “If these questions are authentic …,” and likewise by his earlier statement, “We do not deem them authentic.” The response to this will follow in the next section.

All this assumes that the report reads, “He narrated them,” as the Shaykh preferred. But according to the other wording, “He narrated them to me,” it is an explicit text that cannot possibly bear the meaning the Shaykh mentioned. Thus it is established that ʿAbbād practised concealment in transmission, and that the Shaykh’s denial of this is wholly untenable.