he would say: “They are both blind followers!” How often he has differed with them! And the matter is not long past; it is forthcoming.
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He opposed six hadith masters, who were unanimous in declaring authentic the hadith: “Whoever cuts a row, Allah cuts him off.” He declared it defective on the grounds that it was mursal, although it has been authentically transmitted with a continuous chain to the Prophet. He then tried to weaken even the mursal version through the narrator common to both the continuous and mursal chains, Muʿawiyah ibn Salih—whose reports Muslim accepted—saying of him: “Average, or below average.”
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He quoted al-Ishbili’s statement concerning ʿAbd al-Hamid, as cited by al-Hafiz: “He is not to be used as evidence,” but did not cite al-Hafiz’s refutation of this statement, based on Ibn al-Qattan’s critique of it.
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From al-Fath, he quoted al-Qurtubi’s statement concerning the reason prayer between columns is disliked: that it is the place where the jinn pray. Since this has no basis in the sunnah, he hastened to refute it. Yet he did not quote from al-Fath the reason established in the sunnah, so as to give readers the impression that no legislated and transmitted reason exists. Al-Hafiz said: “A specific prohibition of praying between columns has been transmitted with an authentic chain of transmission.”
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He attributed to Ibn Qudamah the statement: “According to those who permit it, the evidence of those who prohibit it has not been authentically established.” This is a fabrication against him, arising from his distortion of Ibn Qudamah’s words when quoting them; its explanation is given there.
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He had retained the aforementioned hadith, “Whoever cuts a row...,” in his edition of Riyad al-Salihin, thereby indicating that he considered it authentic. Yet he then declared it weak, contrary to six hadith masters, as mentioned above—out of spite toward those whom he falsely dubbed “the Albani adherents”!
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In that same edition, he deleted al-Bukhari’s hadith with a continuous chain—not a suspended report (!)—concerning a worshipper placing his foot against the foot of the worshipper beside him. He deleted it without informing the readers in a footnote! And, praise be to Allah, he did not include it in his collection of weak hadiths. I do not think that he acts upon it when standing in the row, because he regards it as religious excess, even though it was practiced by the Salaf; otherwise, he would not have declared it weak!
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He taunts the Salafis with the charge of blind adherence, being ignorant of the difference between following and blind adherence!