impugned with respect to every narrator from whom he reported. Nor does the converse necessarily follow: a narrator’s being trustworthy does not mean that he is trustworthy in reporting from everyone from whom he narrated. As is well known to those engaged in this field, a narrator who has been criticised may have a particular specialization in reporting from certain narrators and in retaining their hadith, and thus be trustworthy in reporting from them. This hadith was narrated by Ibn Bukayr from al-Layth, as mentioned at the beginning of this documentation. Ibn ʿAdī said of him: “He was a neighbour of al-Layth ibn Saʿd and the most reliable of people in reporting from him; he possessed narrations from al-Layth that no one else possessed.”
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar noted this particular connection with al-Layth, saying in al-Taqrīb: “Trustworthy in reporting from al-Layth; they criticised his hearing from Mālik.” Consider, dear reader, how al-Kawtharī concealed this particular specialization, which categorically precludes any criticism of Ibn Bukayr specifically in his narrations from al-Layth. How brazen he is in concealing the truth and deceiving people.
Third: Even if we grant that he was criticised without qualification, including in his narrations from al-Layth, the criticism was not due to any accusation against his integrity, but rather to a weakness in his memory that might be feared to affect some of his hadith. That concern is negated here, for Saʿīd ibn ʿUfayr corroborated him, saying: “Al-Layth narrated it to me,” as was likewise mentioned from al-Bukhārī’s narration. Others also corroborated him in Muslim and elsewhere, as indicated at the outset of this documentation. What, then, can be said of this al-Kawtharī, who ignored all these corroborating reports although they lay before his eyes? And how did he ignore the other chains from all the other Companions who corroborated Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him? Al-Kawtharī ignored all these facts in order to give the reader the impression that Ibn Bukayr alone transmitted the hadith, that he had been criticised, and that the hadith is weak—whereas it is authentic and widely transmitted, if not mass-transmitted. May Allah Most High deal with him as he deserves. I have seen no one comparable to him in distorting and concealing the facts except al-Saqqāf and al-Haddām.