that Allah Himself bestowed on them, as noted at the very beginning of this introduction.

More often than not, he dismisses the rest of the reports simply because one or another of their individual chains is weak. By doing so he shows that he has no regard for the scholars’ well-known principle: a weak ḥadīth gains strength when supported by numerous chains—provided their weakness is not severe.

Here is just one example of the traditions he wronged and declared unsound. It is his very first example, which in my Series bears the number (109):

He writes (p. 9) after reproducing my documentation and borrowing from it the discussion of the chains’ defects:

“The ḥadīth, in all of these chains, is weak. In the first, second, third and fourth routes the condition of uprightness is missing, and in the fifth the condition of continuity is missing. It is common knowledge among the specialists that the routes of liars, abandoned narrators, unknown narrators, and broken isnāds cannot mutually reinforce one another, even if they were a hundred. Allah knows best.”

These words alone would tell anyone with even a modest grasp of this discipline that the man is ignorant and unworthy of debate, for he has put the chains of proven liars on the same footing as other chains whose weakness is far less grave. Besides being a factual error, this is a slander against the scholars, who clearly distinguish between a chain whose weakness is mild—so that a ḥadīth can be strengthened by similar chains—and a chain whose weakness is severe. Ever since Allah granted us understanding of this science, we have proceeded on that very distinction, and it is on that basis that I ruled this ḥadīth sound. Most of its chains are not severely weak, especially since I have discovered yet another route from Mujāhid with a chain of trustworthy transmitters; al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar declared it authentic. I therefore adjoined it to the other routes to reinforce them, as you will see in this edition, God willing. This is part of