wa-l-Qawāṣim, where he says:

“Beware lest you be deceived by the addition, ‘All of them will be in the Fire except one,’ for it is an unsound addition, and it is not unlikely that it was interpolated by heretics. Ibn Hazm said: ‘This hadith is not authentic.’”

I came across this declaration of weakness years ago. Then some students at the Islamic University drew my attention to al-Shawkānī’s statement in his exegesis, Fatḥ al-Qadīr (2/56):

“Ibn Kathīr said in his exegesis: ‘The hadith concerning the division of the communities into seventy-odd groups has been narrated through numerous chains, which we have mentioned elsewhere.’ I say: As for the addition that they will be in the Fire except for one, a number of hadith scholars (!) have declared it weak. Indeed, Ibn Hazm said that it is fabricated.”

I do not know whom he meant by his words, “a number ...,” for I know of no early hadith scholar who declared this addition weak. Rather, a number of scholars have deemed it authentic, and their names have already been mentioned. As for Ibn Hazm, I do not know where he said this. The first place that comes to mind is his book al-Faṣl fī al-Milal wa-l-Niḥal. I consulted it and searched the places where it might be found, but I could not locate it.

Moreover, the reports attributed to him differ: Ibn al-Wazīr said that he considered it “not authentic,” whereas al-Shawkānī said that he considered it “fabricated.” The difference between these two reports is evident. If this is authentically attributed to Ibn Hazm, then it is refuted on two grounds:

First: scholarly hadith criticism has established the authenticity of this addition, so no weight is to be given to the view of one who declared it weak.

Second: those who deemed it authentic are more numerous and more knowledgeable in hadith than Ibn Hazm, especially since he was