“Shaykh Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ agrees with me in declaring it weak!”

Yet, regarding any of those hadiths that I had previously declared weak before his shaykh (1)—and whose weakness he himself learned from me, like this disciple, as he knows very well—he did not say: “Shaykh al-Albānī agrees with me; rather, I agree with Shaykh al-Albānī in declaring it weak!” This is especially so in the case of the hadith of Ibn ʿAbbās, no. 30 in his book. There he departed from his usual practice and said after it (p. 520):

“Shaykh Shuʿayb said: It is good on account of corroborating evidence.”

He said this concerning his shaykh, while knowing that I had categorically declared it weak in my annotations to Gardens (no. 588), and that it contains a rejected addition, as I explained in The Rulings on Funerals (p. 197). Why, then, did he not say: “I agree with Shaykh al-Albānī in declaring it weak?”

The answer is apparent to intelligent readers. They may be helped to see it by reflecting on what he said regarding the hadith of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī and Abū Hurayrah concerning the virtue of tahlīl (declaring Allah’s oneness), which states:

“Whoever says it during his illness and then dies, the Fire will not consume him.”

He said (p. 531):

“Shaykh al-Albānī holds in his Authentic Collection (1390) that it has the status of a hadith attributed to the Prophet, but I do not hold that view. Shaykh Shuʿayb agrees with me in declaring the Prophet-attributed report weak!”

Reflect on his words, “but I do not hold that view,” and the answer will become clear: it is what is alluded to in some lands by the saying, “Oppose others, and you will become known.”