Yet Mujāhid, the eminent Successor (d. 104 AH), had preceded him in saying this, as had Ibn Jarīr (d. 310 AH), the leading exegete; al-Baghawī (d. 516 AH); al-Qurṭubī (d. 671 AH); al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538 AH); and others to whom I referred earlier.
- How could he say (p. 431): “Ibn Taymiyyah did not mention the distinction in question in his book al-Nubuwwāt [Prophethood]”?! An author is not required to mention everything he knows about a subject in a single book. Ibn Taymiyyah mentioned it in more than one place in his fatwas; had he consulted his Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā [Collected Fatwas], he would have found it in 10/290 and 18/7. From this, you may see the falsity of his statement immediately afterward: “This error of distinguishing between the messenger and the prophet appears to have entered people’s minds only through a fabricated hadith narrated by Ibn Mardawayh from Abū Dharr. It is a very lengthy hadith, and Abū Dharr could not have retained it given its length...”!
I say: The distinction in question does not principally rest upon this lengthy hadith, which he alleges Abū Dharr could not have retained because of its length, as I explained in this exceptional documentation of the hadith, which is unique in its field, as I believe. By Allah, this allegation is an innovation in the science of narrator criticism and accreditation; praise be to Allah, no one before him has advanced anything like it! Otherwise, he would be obliged to reject many lengthy, authentic, well-established hadiths found in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections and elsewhere, such as the hadith concerning the Treaty of Ḥudaybiyyah, the hadith of the Dajjāl and the Jassāsah, and ʿĀʾishah’s hadith: “I was to you as Abū Zarʿ was to Umm Zarʿ,” as well as others. Perhaps, Allah Most High willing, he does not hold himself to that implication. His imitation of Ibn al-Jawzī in judging the hadith fabricated is also unacceptable, for mere imitation is not knowledge, as someone of his standing surely knows. Why, then, did he prefer to follow him rather than those who refuted his verdict that it was fabricated, such as al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿAsqalānī, the critical scholar al-Ālūsī, and others among those who