I say: This objection is consistent with al-Bukhārī’s well-known position of requiring established knowledge that the narrators met as a condition for continuity of the chain. But the majority differ from him, holding that the mere possibility of meeting, on account of contemporaneity, is sufficient. Although al-Bukhārī’s condition is more cautious, in our view it is a condition of completeness, not a condition of validity. Accordingly, al-Bukhārī’s objection is not applicable to this hadith.

Similar is the statement of Abū Ḥātim in al-Marāsīl (p. 102):

“I do not know whether al-Shaʿbī heard from Samurah or not, because he placed a man between himself and him.”

I say: This doubt does not negate continuity, for it is not certain knowledge; thus there is no difficulty. The difficulty lies rather in his categorical denial of it in al-Shaʿbī’s biographical entry, as his son related from him in al-Jarḥ wa-al-Taʿdīl (3/323):

“He did not hear from Samurah ibn Jundub, and Shuʿbah’s hadith from Firās, from al-Shaʿbī—‘I heard Samurah’—is mistaken; Simʿān ibn Mushannaj stands between them.”

I say: The presence of an intermediary between them in some narrations does not preclude his having heard from Samurah, since it is possible that he heard it from him later, so long as their contemporaneity is established. Ibn Abī Ḥātim himself mentioned at the beginning of al-Shaʿbī’s biographical entry that he saw ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. Indeed, al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿAlāʾī said in Jāmiʿ al-Taḥṣīl fī Aḥkām al-Marāsīl (p. 248/322):

“He narrated from ʿAlī, may Allah be pleased with him; this is found in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (1), and al-Bukhārī does not deem the mere possibility of meeting sufficient, as mentioned above.”

I say: ʿAlī, may Allah be pleased with him, died in the year 40, and Samurah in the year 58. Thus, the possibility of meeting and hearing from him is established; so the categorical assertion that he did not hear from him merely because an intermediary occurs between them