I say: Let the reader consider this vile act of concealment: he spoke of Bashir and of his being trustworthy—and that is true—while passing over the defect in the hadith, namely Ayyub ibn ‘Utbah, who appears in al-Bayhaqi’s narration, thereby giving readers the impression that it contains no defect. Moreover, al-Baghandi’s version (no. 64) likewise contains no four-rak‘ah formulation.
His statement, “Thus, the hadith is authentic when the two chains are taken together,” is plainly invalid if he means al-Bayhaqi’s and al-Baghandi’s narrations, for this amounts to strengthening one weak narration with another—and only a deranged person would do such a thing. If, however, he means this route of Ayyub and the route of Ibn Rahuyah, then it is much the same as the first case, since both revolve around Abu Bakr. The only difference is that the first chain is interrupted, as has preceded, whereas the other is continuous; but the one who made it continuous—namely Ayyub—is weak, while the narrators in the first are trustworthy. Al-Ghumari himself, as mentioned above, said that its chain meets the criteria of al-Bukhari and Muslim. So how can an interrupted narration be strengthened by a continuous one when the latter’s version is outweighed?
That would be so even if the text of each of them contained the four-rak‘ah formulation, but, as noted above, this is not the case. Nor then would the mention of the four-rak‘ah formulation in Abu Bakr’s narration be objectionable—but that is far from the case. We have established its objectionability with evidence that no one can refute, however obstinate he may be, like al-Ghumari. With this, the discussion of his first hadith comes to an end.
- As for his second hadith, which is from Anas, al-Ghumari’s admission that its chain contains two unknown narrators has spared us the trouble of refuting it. Yet this is not, in my view, a disqualifying defect, since both have been corroborated by other narrators. Rather, the objectionability lies in the text, while the contradiction occurs in both the chain and the text. The first of these is their statement in their hadith that Gabriel instructed the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, to call the people to prayer. It is well known that the call to prayer was instituted only in Medina!