“Umar is weak.” I say: His shaykh, Ayyub, is similarly weak, even though Muslim narrated from him, for al-Hafiz said: “There is some weakness in him.” No one besides Ibn Hibban declared him trustworthy. Thus, al-Mundhiri’s statement (2/234), after referring to the criticism concerning Umar: “The rest of its narrators are well-known, reliable men whose reports are accepted as proof; therefore, the hadith is good. And Allah knows best!” is manifest leniency.

I have cited it in al-Da'ifah (6205). Nevertheless, the hadith may be judged good on the basis of this supporting report and others like it. It was for this reason that I included it here. I had previously cited al-Tirmidhi’s hadith from Abu Hurayrah in al-Da'ifah (1150), because it alone explains the meaning of “grazing.” My reader-brothers should take note of this before they are surprised by one accustomed to alleging “contradictions” in matters he does not understand—or perhaps does understand, but has been enticed to conceal poison in honey.

Nothing better demonstrates this than the work he published under the title, “The Authentic Description of the Prophet’s Prayer, from the Opening Takbir to the Closing Taslim—as Though You Were Watching It!” In reality, it contains only what shows his partisan adherence to the Shafi'i school—not to al-Shafi'i himself—over the Prophetic Sunnah. He went so far as to declare invalid the prayer of one who recites Surah al-Inshiqaq, “When the Sky Is Split Open,” and prostrates therein, despite knowing that the hadith was reported by al-Bukhari and Muslim. For that reason, he did not include it in his alleged Sahih, because it conflicts with his school.

Likewise, when he cited Abu Sa'id’s report recorded by Muslim concerning what the Prophet would recite in the Zuhr prayer, he did not cite it in full; rather, he excised from it what the Prophet would recite in the final two rak'ahs of Zuhr, because it conflicts with his school. More astonishing still is that Imam al-Shafi'i stated in his book al-Umm the very portion that he excised from the hadith, out of partisanship for the Shafi'i school! More astonishing than all of this is that he contradicted all of them in defense of innovation and in following the common people, and thus lied about the Messenger of Allah