matter. Ibrāhīm ibn Kharzādh said: “Take note of four men whom you have seen …” and he mentioned Ibrāhīm ibn ʿArʿarah among them.

I say: Abū Zurʿah likewise affirmed his trustworthiness by narrating from him. Al-Ḥākim said: “He was an imam among the leading preservers of hadith.” Al-Khalīlī said: “A great ḥāfiẓ, trustworthy, and unanimously accepted.” Others besides these also declared him trustworthy.

I say: A difficulty arises with al-Khaṭīb’s preferred view that Ibn ʿArʿarah heard this hadith from Muʿādh, namely, his explicit statement that Muʿādh gave him his father’s book, in which this hadith was found. This indicates that he did not hear it from him, as is explicitly stated in al-Ṭaḥāwī’s aforementioned addition: “And I did not hear it from him.” This means that his transmission was based on finding it in a written source, rather than on direct audition.

The difficulty may be resolved by saying that his not having heard the book from Muʿādh does not preclude his having heard this hadith from him separately. For al-Ṭabarānī explicitly stated that he heard the hadith from him, and the chain to al-Ṭabarānī establishing this is authentic. Although some scholars criticized al-Maʿmarī, the final scholarly judgment settled upon declaring him trustworthy, as al-Ḥāfiẓ stated. This is further supported by al-Athram’s earlier statement: “Ibrāhīm ibn ʿArʿarah claims that he heard it from Muʿādh,” which indicates that his hearing it from him was known among them; for otherwise,