“Ibn Ḥibbān mentioned him in al-Thiqāt (The Reliable Narrators), and Ibn Khuzaymah included his reports in his Ṣaḥīḥ collection.”

I say: He listed him among the generation of the Successors’ successors (7/549), through Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth’s narration from him. Maʿqil ibn ʿUbayd Allāh also narrated from him, as recorded in al-Jarḥ wa-al-Taʿdīl (Narrator Criticism and Accreditation) (4/2/9), which likewise reports Ibn Maʿīn’s accreditation of him. Yet this very report occurs in the preceding biographical entry—that of al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Mughīth, the client of Banū ʿAbd al-Dār—and it is likewise found in Tārīkh al-Dārimī (p. 140), on the authority of Ibn Maʿīn. However, there he did not say, “Ibn Abī Mughīth ...” Thus, it appears that this has been interpolated into the entry for al-Walīd ibn ʿUbayd Allāh in al-Jarḥ wa-al-Taʿdīl. Nāfiʿ ibn ʿUmar also narrated from him, as mentioned above in the hadith under discussion. These, then, are three reliable narrators who narrated from him, so he is truthful, were it not for al-Dāraquṭnī’s declaring him weak—a judgment which al-Dhahabī accepted, as noted above. And Allah knows best.

On this occasion, I should mention that Ibn Ḥibbān recorded in his Ṣaḥīḥ (201, al-Mawārid) the hadith of the man with a head wound who became ritually impure during a bitterly cold winter. They gave him a legal opinion that he had no choice but to perform the full ritual bath, so he bathed and died. The Prophet said: “They killed him; may Allah kill them ...” the hadith. Ibn Ḥibbān narrated it through Ibn Khuzaymah, and it is found in Ibn Khuzaymah’s Ṣaḥīḥ, as al-Ḥāfiẓ noted above. Ibn al-Jārūd and al-Ḥākim also recorded it, and both al-Ḥākim and al-Dhahabī deemed it authentic. A number of scholars also regarded it as strong, including Ibn al-Qayyim in Ighāthat al-Lahfān.

As for its annotator, “the Demolisher,” Ibn ʿAbd al-Mannān, he declared it weak—as is his habit in opposing the imams of the Sunnah. When he documented it, he concealed from his readers this chain of transmission, of which the very least that can be said—given the authentication of those just mentioned—is that it is suitable for corroboration. He likewise concealed their authentication of it. How often he has committed such injustice in declaring reports weak and concealing evidence! May Allah requite him as he deserves. See the details in my refutation of him, no. (3), which I ask Allah to facilitate my completing.