the introduction to Ḍaʿīf al-Adab was not confined to you alone. It also contained other refutations of people like you, who declare authentic hadiths weak, as well as others who declare weak hadiths authentic without knowledge. Among them are those who frequently quote me, benefit from my books, praise them, and refer readers to them—giving the impression that they esteem and love me. Yet I included them along with you in my refutation, so that you may know that I refute for the sake of knowledge and in defense of the sunnah, which has been wronged by those who claim knowledge—not out of a personal quarrel, as you wrongfully and maliciously seek to interpret it. The point is that my reply to you came amid other replies, and was extremely brief, occupying fewer than 16 pages. Had I devoted a separate, detailed refutation to you alone, it would have become another book, larger than the one for which I am writing the introduction: Ḍaʿīf al-Adab al-Mufrad. This would be unsuitable, as is evident to you.

Since you urge me to mention to you some of those “deceptions and sins”—yes, sins, not errors—here I am, then, doing so, Allah willing. I do so not for your sake, for you know well what has issued from you, but for the sake of some readers who do not notice them and who still think well of the one who makes such statements:

First: After mentioning that the hadith is suspended in al-Bukhārī, and that he did not explicitly state having heard it, so that it is interrupted, you said:

“There is disagreement concerning the expression, ‘So-and-so told me,’ but the more likely view is that it too is a suspension, for reasons that there is not room to mention here.”

I say: This contains the following deception and other errors:

1. There is no disagreement whatsoever over the continuity of a chain of transmission in which al-Bukhārī says, “So-and-so told me.” Rather, an unknown Maghribī said: “It is a chain that al-Bukhārī does not cite as proof