Some said, “There is no harm in him,” while others declared him trustworthy. Imam Abū Ḥātim said of him: “He is a shaykh whose reports are not used as proof.”

Its chain also contains Ḥashraj ibn Nubātah al-Wāsiṭī, whom some declared trustworthy. Al-Nasāʾī said of him: “He is not strong.” Moreover, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal narrates this report from Suwayd al-Ṭaḥḥān, concerning whom al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar said in Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb: “Weak in hadith.”

I say: Thus, he has criticized it as defective on three grounds. We shall answer them in a manner that will disclose the truth to you, if Allah Most High wills:

The first is the disagreement concerning Saʿīd ibn Jumḥān. The answer is that not every disagreement concerning a narrator is detrimental; rather, the evaluations must be considered and weighed. Earlier, we mentioned the names of some of the imams who declared him trustworthy: Aḥmad, Ibn Maʿīn, and Abū Dāwūd. Ibn Ḥibbān may be added here, for he included him in al-Thiqāt, as may al-Nasāʾī, who was the one who said: “There is no harm in him.”

Set against these are al-Bukhārī’s statement: “There are strange things in his hadith,” and al-Sājī’s statement: “He is not corroborated in his hadith.”

I say: This is an unspecified and unexplained disparagement; it therefore cannot be accepted in opposition to the accreditation of those who declared him trustworthy, as is established in the principles of hadith terminology. Furthermore, those who accredited him are a group, and their number increases when those who authenticated his hadith are included, since authenticating a hadith plainly entails accrediting its narrator.

Moreover, Ibn Jumḥān was not alone in narrating this hadith, for, as mentioned above, we cited two corroborating reports for it.

The second is that its chain contains Ḥashraj ibn Nubātah