had ever been criticized, even with the slightest remark. He said:

“The correct view is that it is mawqūf (halted at the Companion).”

He clung to a single mawqūf report recorded by Ismāʿīl al-Qāḍī, thereby violating the rule that an additional wording narrated by a trustworthy transmitter is accepted—especially when that wording is established through two independent chains from Abū Hurayrah and was declared sound by the imams already named, none of whom gave so much as a nod to the defect this aggressor fabricated. He also ignored another principle: that this mawqūf report legally takes the ruling of a marfūʿ narration, for it is not something that could be said on the basis of personal opinion, as is obvious.

His aggression is further exposed in his statement:

“What reinforces this even more is that all the narrations traced back to Abū Hurayrah, apart from the one we have mentioned, contain no mention of sending blessings upon the Prophet.”

So he claimed—without himself invoking blessings upon the Prophet ﷺ, not even with the customary abbreviation “ṣ”! A practical confirmation of his determination to weaken the ḥadīth.

My reply to this so-called reinforcement is what has already been established under the first principle.

Moreover, the narrations to which he alludes are those that follow under numbers 77, 78, and 79. They are authentic, yet they do not include the two routes that preserve the additional wording. Out of ignorance he nevertheless gave them precedence over the latter! Had he reversed the order he would have been correct and would not have strayed from the judgment of the ḥadīth masters. But, as the proverb says, “Love of a thing blinds and deafens,” and Allah states: “And whomever Allah has not granted light, he shall have no light” (1).