both of which I had traced in al-Ḍaʿīfah (no. 3170), to which I referred for the aforementioned weakening. When it became clear to me that its chain of transmission was good, and that the other route and the corroborating report could validly be cited as supporting evidence, I decided to transfer it to Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ. Allah is the Grantor of success.

My aforementioned restriction puzzled the eminent brother ʿAlī Riḍā, the source-tracer and critical editor of Ṣifat al-Jannah, because of Muʿallā’s extreme weakness. He wrote (2/208):

“… Yet I could not see why al-Albānī contented himself with merely declaring it weak!”

I say: He was justified in this, because he came across only this narration of Muʿallā and assumed that Muʿallā alone had narrated it. But had he recalled that it is corroborated by the hadith under discussion—which he himself later traced (2/232–233)—the reason for this would have become clear to him, Allah willing.

Although he was inclined to regard Darrāj as weak without qualification—as I too had formerly done—perhaps he will reconsider, as I later did, and come to see, as I did, that Darrāj’s hadith is good except when he narrates from Abū al-Haytham, as I established in the preceding hadith. I say: even his declaring Darrāj weak makes Darrāj’s report a weak corroboration for Muʿallā’s hadith. Unlike my own judgment that it is good, which makes it a good corroboration for Muʿallā’s hadith. This is due to the Prophet’s saying: “You have spoken the truth, though he is a liar.” Just as it is impermissible to reject a liar’s report once its truth has become evident, so too it is impermissible to discard the report of a weak narrator who is not accused of fabrication merely because an accused narrator also transmitted it.

The explanation is that, under the well-known conditions, a hadith narrated by a weak transmitter may become good through supporting evidence. Likewise, a hadith narrated by a liar—or, even more so, by one who is severely weak—may become weak through supporting evidence; indeed, it may even become good or authentic, depending on whether its supporting routes are few or many, and on whether the weakness in them is slight or severe. This is a subtle point recognized—or at least noticed—by one who has practised the discipline of hadith source-tracing and spent many years acquiring a deep understanding of the principles of hadith methodology. Allah is the One who grants success.