truly defend the hadith of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Rather, it is the approach of those driven by caprice: they brand authentic reports as weak and then hunt for defects that carry no real weight. Here is a case in point, dear reader. Layth’s weakness is by no means so severe that his narration cannot serve as corroboration, contrary to what this self-styled critic would have you believe. Imām Muslim himself included Layth in his Ṣaḥīḥ alongside another narrator, which is an explicit indication that he considered him usable for supporting evidence. The critical ḥadith master al-Dhahabī explained the reason in al-Kāshif, saying, “He has a slight weakness due to poor memory.”

Ibn ʿAdī concluded Layth’s biographical entry in al-Kāmil (6/87) with essentially the same judgment after citing several who viewed him as weak:

“He possesses acceptable narrations. Shuʿbah, al-Thawrī, and other reliable scholars transmitted from him. Despite the weakness in him, his ḥadith is written down.”

All of this shows that, in the eyes of the specialists, a narrator’s mere weakness does not automatically disqualify his report from being used as corroboration, as I have explained earlier. This is something our critic is ignorant of, which is why he has fallen into excessive zeal in declaring sound ḥadith weak. Allah alone is the One whose help we seek.

His conceit and self-admiration reach the point that he tries to shore up his verdict of weakness by invoking Shaykh Shuʿayb al-Arnāʾūṭ, ending with the claim, “Shaykh Shuʿayb agreed with me in declaring it weak!”

By Allah, I do not know whether he is truthful in this, or whether he somehow cajoled the Shaykh into a show of agreement. What I do know is that the facts belie him in at least some of these narrations—and this present ḥadith is one of them. Although he alleges that Shaykh Shuʿayb concurred, I found that the Shaykh actually disagreed with him in his notes on Sharḥ al-Sunnah (14/