by the aforementioned al-Dhahabī?! Even though he knows al-Dhahabī’s standing in mastery, knowledge of narrators, and narrator criticism and accreditation.
The other point is his earlier statement: “As for his claim that al-Bukhārī transmitted from him, al-Ḥāfiẓ has refuted it …” This, however, is open to objection, for al-Ḥāfiẓ did not address Ibn ʿAdī’s statement at all in Hady al-Sārī; thus, it is not permissible to claim that he refuted it. The brother only said this because he supposed there to be a contradiction between the two statements, whereas there is none: an affirmation does not negate a negation. What Ibn ʿAdī affirmed applies to al-Bukhārī’s shaykhs outside the Ṣaḥīḥ, while what al-Ḥāfiẓ denied concerns only the Ṣaḥīḥ. Thus, there is neither contradiction nor refutation.
This concludes what relates to the first point. Its summary is that Ibn Ḥibbān’s accreditation of the narrator of the hadith under discussion is sound and there is no basis for rejecting it, and that his hadith is authentic, as stated by the hadith master and critic, Imam al-Dhahabī.
The second point is that the brother was not precise in his criticism of the hadith and some of its narrators. You have learned from the first point that he did not mention al-Dhahabī’s authentication of the hadith. I now add that he likewise did not mention al-Ḥāfiẓ’s assessment of its narrator, al-Marwazī: “Truthful.” Yet, inconsistently, he adopted this very assessment of al-Ḥāfiẓ regarding his corroborating narrator, Muḥammad ibn al-Faraj, the Qurashī Hāshimī, their client. This is the least that has been said of him; otherwise, al-Ḥaḍramī, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, al-Sarrāj, and Ibn Ḥibbān all declared him trustworthy, and Muslim relied upon him as evidence. Accordingly, al-Dhahabī said in al-Kāshif: “Trustworthy.”
It is very clear that his disregard for the statements of these imams, for al-Dhahabī’s authentication of al-Marwazī’s hadith, and for the fact that al-Marwazī was deemed authoritative by al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Khalīlī and others, was merely a prelude on his part.