its chain, as explained above. In accordance with the agreement between me and the Arab Education Office—as stipulated in the introduction to The Weak Hadiths of Abu Dawud (pp. 8–9) and elsewhere—I wrote beneath the hadith:

“Weak.”

That is, its chain is weak. Yet the proprietor, overstepping his bounds, added on his own initiative:

“[The Weak Hadiths of al-Jamiʿ al-Saghir].”

He further overstepped his bounds by appending a comment that did not depart from the conclusion I had mentioned above, but did so in a deceitful style that leads the reader to think that I am contradictory—just as that ignorant and spiteful al-Saqqaf does, alleging “contradictions” out of his accumulated ignorance. The longstanding associate followed in his footsteps by making the comment referred to. Had he feared Allah and been fair, he ought to have made clear that there is no contradiction between grading it weak, in view of Abu Dawud’s chain, and grading it good, in view of the combined strength of the two routes—as is explicit in my hadith documentation of the chapter mentioned above.

Nor was he content with this overstepping; rather, he committed a third and still worse offense. He began to give readers the impression that there was a contradiction concerning the name of the hadith’s Companion narrator, since “Ibn Umar” had appeared in the aforementioned comment as a typographical or scribal error. He wrote:

“And in The Authentic (sic) al-Jamiʿ, he stated that it was from Ibn Amr!”

This is precisely how it appeared in his comment: “The Authentic al-Jamiʿ”! This too was a scribal or typographical error. It was as though Allah willed to disgrace him, so he fell into that of which he had accused another—confirming the saying: “Whoever digs a pit for his brother falls into it himself.” So take heed, people of insight! Allah is the One whose help is sought, and there is no power or strength