This is what he said, and al-Aʿẓamī uncritically followed him—as was his habit. Even more astonishing is what al-Manāwī did: he cited al-Haythamī’s first statement, then immediately remarked: “This shows that the author’s symbol indicating that it is good is inadequate; he should instead have indicated that it is authentic!” Those responsible for publishing al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr (1/5/588/1939) likewise followed him, as was their custom.

The error has two aspects. First, the statement, “Its narrators are trustworthy,” does not mean that the chain of transmission is authentic, as has been explained more than once. How then could it, when he qualified his first statement by saying, “Its narrators have been declared trustworthy”? This indicates that some of its narrators were deemed trustworthy on a questionable basis. Al-Dhahabī frequently uses this expression in his work al-Kāshif. I examined this statement of his in dozens of biographical entries and found that all, or most, concerned narrators whom Ibn Ḥibbān alone had declared trustworthy. Yet, in al-Mīzān, he describes them, and others like them, as “unknown,” while al-Ḥāfiẓ describes them as “acceptable.”

In this hadith’s chain of transmission, as you can see, is Suwayd ibn Jabalah. Ibn Ḥibbān declared him trustworthy, but al-Bukhārī mentioned that four trustworthy narrators transmitted from him, one of whom was Ḥarīz ibn ʿUthmān. Abū Dāwūd said: “Ḥarīz’s shaykhs are trustworthy.” For this reason, in Taysīr al-Intifāʿ, I inclined to regard him as truthful. Thus, he is not the hidden defect in this hadith; rather, it is the narrator who follows him, certainly.

The second is this Isḥāq ibn Zubayrīq, concerning whom there is disagreement. Ibn Ḥibbān included him in al-Thiqāt (8/113), following Ibn Maʿīn’s statement concerning him: “There is no harm in him.” However, Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf al-Ṭāʾī al-Ḥimṣī declared him a liar, and he knew him better than others did, since he was from his own town. Therefore, al-Ḥāfiẓ said of him: “Truthful, but makes many errors; Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf stated outright that he lies.”