The substance of my reply, insofar as I can recall it—for I did not keep a copy for myself, which is one of my failings for which I pray that Allah Most High will forgive me—was as follows:

As for the second point, I did not rely on the statements of those who criticized him, for two reasons:

First, it was unspecified and unexplained criticism.

Second, it was countered by the accreditation of those who declared him reliable, among whom were some known for their strictness. Abu Hatim, for example, said—as I mentioned there—: “Acceptable in hadith.”

The aforementioned gentleman attributed this statement to Abu Dawud, which was one of his errors. Rather, Abu Dawud said of him: “There is nothing objectionable about him,” as recorded in al-Tahdhib. This statement of his is substantively in agreement with Abu Hatim’s statement. Similarly, Ibn Hibban and Ibn Shahin included him in The Trustworthy Narrators.

As for the third point, what the gentleman himself reported from al-Dhahabi and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani—that he was truthful—is sufficient to refute it. His being a Rafidi does not harm him so long as he was not an active propagandist, for what matters in transmission is truthfulness and precision, as established in hadith methodology. Moreover, some have mentioned that he renounced Rafidism. Perhaps for this reason al-Dhahabi, in al-Kashif, confined himself to describing him as: “Truthful,” and did not charge him with Rafidism.

As for the fourth point, it is among the most astonishing claims he has made! For, at the very time that he takes issue