“There is no harm in him; people narrated from him.” Ibn Ṭāhir al-Maqdisī mentioned in Rijāl al-Ṣaḥīḥayn (2/568/2209) that al-Bukhārī narrated from him independently at the end of al-Iʿtiṣām, and alongside another narrator elsewhere. Al-Ḥāfiẓ indicated in his entry on him in al-Tahdhīb that this hadith occurs in al-Bukhārī as a corroborative narration. He likewise stated this in al-Taqrīb, although its wording conflicts with what was cited above from Ibn Ṭāhir, for he said: “Weak; he has only one occurrence in al-Bukhārī, as a corroborative narration.”

This also conflicts with what he said in his entry on him in the introduction to Fatḥ al-Bārī (p. 451): “Al-Bukhārī narrated from him one hadith, from Hishām, from his father, from ʿĀʾishah, in [the chapter of] Gifts; and he was corroborated in it there.” I have not identified this hadith of “Gifts,” but it falls under the “elsewhere” to which he referred, and this is contrary to the facts. For I found the hadith at the end of al-Iʿtiṣām, no. 717, with the chain of transmission mentioned above, except that it says, “from ʿĀʾishah,” in place of “from Umm Salamah.” It is part of the hadith of the Slander.

In al-Fatḥ (13/343), al-Ḥāfiẓ discussed only al-Bukhārī’s shaykh in this chain—the one who narrated it from Yaḥyā—whereas it would have been more appropriate for him to clarify the standing of this Yaḥyā. Yet he did not do so, neither here nor in the first passage, apparently because he was a corroborating narrator. Perhaps for this reason al-Dhahabī included him in Narrators Criticized in a Manner That Does Not Warrant Rejection (187/365), though he did no more than note that he was among al-Bukhārī’s narrators, while saying: “Abū Dāwūd declared him weak.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ’s reference to corroboration points to his statement in al-Fatḥ (3/487): “Al-Ismāʿīlī has also narrated, through Ḥassān ibn Ibrāhīm and ʿAlī ibn Hāshim”