For this reason, when al-Hakim recorded it and said of this Azhar, “A Basran ascetic,” al-Dhahabi made no comment on it other than his statement (1/538):

“I say: Ibn ʿAdi said, ‘I hope that there is no harm in him.’”

Al-Mundhiri said in al-Targhib (3/5):

“Its chain of transmission is continuous and good, and its narrators are trustworthy and precise. There is disagreement concerning Azhar ibn Sinan, but Ibn ʿAdi said, ‘I hope that there is no harm in him.’”

For this reason, al-Diyaʾ al-Maqdisi included it in al-Ahadith al-Mukhtarah (vol. 1, nos. 176–178—edited by me). It has other chains and corroborating reports, some of which I mentioned there. What has preceded is sufficient for anyone who is fair-minded.

This being so, two things seem evident to me from this critic’s treatment of this hadith:

First, he accepts negative narrator criticism categorically, even when it is unexplained—contrary to what is well known in the science of hadith terminology.

Second, he does not accept the principle that a weak hadith may be strengthened by numerous chains whose weakness is not severe—a principle established by Ibn al-Salah in al-Muqaddimah and commended by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah in more than one place in his writings and Fatawa. This critic has cited seven chains for this hadith, most of which contain no narrator accused of lying. Yet, after declaring each of them individually weak, he derived no strength for the hadith from their combined force—especially the hadith of al-Muhasir ibn Habib, which alone constitutes proof in this matter. So what then if it is joined by the hadith of Azhar ibn Sinan and similar reports? May Allah guide you!

I can almost see this man—like so many others—considering it too much for Allah Most High to grant His servants this immense reward for this proclamation of His oneness; once that notion had become firmly settled in his mind, he began