“Sulayman ibn Arqam is weak.”

The other chain is narrated by Ahmad ibn Mula'ib ibn Hayyan: Salih ibn Ishaq narrated to us: Yahya ibn Kathir al-Kahili—Salih said: “He was trustworthy, and there was nothing objectionable about him”—narrated to us: Hisham, from Ibn Sirin, from him, with the same report. However, he said “a fox” in place of “a monkey.” Al-Bayhaqi also recorded it (5309).

I say: This chain is good, or good as supporting evidence and corroboration, for all its narrators are trustworthy except Yahya ibn Kathir al-Kahili, concerning whom there is disagreement. Abu Hatim said: “A shaykh.” Al-Nasa'i said: “Weak.” Ibn Hibban included him in al-Thiqat (5/527), as did Ibn Shahin (354/1525), who also mentioned Salih ibn Ishaq’s statement cited in this chain of transmission.

Al-Hafiz commented on this in al-Tahdhib, saying: “This is what he said! Rather, the aforementioned Salih narrated from Yahya ibn Kathir, the associate of al-Basri. If what he said is preserved, it would appear that he narrated from both of them. However, Ibn Abi Hatim, Ibn Hibban, and others did not mention any narrator from al-Kahili other than Marwan.”

I say: I do not know al-Hafiz’s basis for his claim that the aforementioned Salih narrated exclusively from Yahya, the associate of al-Basri—who is unanimously deemed weak, and whom some even declared abandoned—unless his basis is that its source, al-Mizzi’s Tahdhib, mentions his narration from him.

My response to him is twofold. First, this does not rule out his having narrated from al-Kahili as well, as he himself indicated at the end of his remarks. Second, the scholarly principle states that an affirmation takes precedence over a denial. Thus, when a hadith master such as Ibn Shahin affirms something, it is not valid to counter him with the kind of denial found in al-Hafiz’s words. What Ibn Shahin affirmed occurs in this very narration of al-Bayhaqi, whose chain is authentic: all of its narrators, from al-Bayhaqi’s shaykh and upward to Yahya, are trustworthy. For he said: Abu Abd Allah informed us