A second example of what I mentioned earlier is that Imam Muslim cited it as an example in other categories of the matter under discussion. The scholars have relied upon and authenticated two hadiths narrated by Rabīʿī ibn Ḥirāsh from ʿImrān. One concerns the conversion to Islam of Ḥuṣayn, the father of ʿImrān, in which the Prophet said to him, before and after he accepted Islam: “Say: O Allah, protect me from the evil of my own self, and grant me resolve for the soundest course in my affair.” Al-Nawawī said immediately after it in his commentary on Muslim’s Introduction: “Its chain of transmission is authentic.” Al-Ḥāfiẓ said likewise in al-Iṣābah, in the biographical entry for Ḥuṣayn.

The importance of this example is evident to the fair-minded observer, particularly with regard to al-Nawawī. A few pages before this authentication, he had rejected Imam Muslim’s position; yet here he found himself with no option but to agree with him. This can only be due to the strength of that position in reality. This is precisely what befell the one who weakens authentic hadiths: when he came to this hadith (1/107) and documented its sources, he pronounced its chain good! I do not know whether this is due to heedlessness and insufficient investigation, playing both sides, or personal bias. Otherwise, he would have had to declare it weak, as he did the hadith under the heading, since in his view they share the same hidden defect: the failure to establish that the narrators met. Or else he should authenticate them both, on the basis of mere contemporaneity—which is correct.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ indicated this sufficiency of contemporaneity at the end of the biographical entry for Rabīʿī. After relating Ibn ʿAsākir’s statement that Rabīʿī had not heard from Abū Dharr, he remarked: “If his hearing from ʿUmar is established, then there is no reason why he could not have heard from Abū Dharr.” This confirms that he held contemporaneity alone to be sufficient.

A third example comes to mind: the hadith of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan al-ʿAlawī, known as al-Nafs al-Zakiyyah, who narrated from Abū al-Zinād, from al-Aʿraj, from Abū Hurayrah, attributing it to the Prophet: