is an error; for ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Isḥāq al-Qurashī does not narrate from Sayyār Abū al-Ḥakam, nor does Abū Muʿāwiyah Muḥammad ibn Khāzim al-Ḍarīr narrate from him.”
I say: This is obstinacy beyond all measure, and an unparalleled denial of established scholarly facts. This may be demonstrated in several points:
-
To my knowledge, no scholar has ever made the denial they have made. It is therefore to be rejected, since they do not consider themselves qualified to undertake exhaustive investigation and correct the specialist scholars. At least, that is what we think of them. Thus, they are not permitted to deny that of which they have not acquired full knowledge.
-
The ḥāfiẓ Abū Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥātim affirmed what they denied, as we mentioned there. Yet they ignored him, thereby exposing their obstinacy. The ḥāfiẓ’s statement is found in his book al-Jarḥ wa al-Taʿdīl (Narrator Criticism and Accreditation), 2/2/212, which is in their hands.
-
Two trustworthy narrators affirmed that designation, “al-Qurashī”: Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, in al-Musnad, who was known as Mushkadānah and was one of Muslim’s trustworthy shaykhs; and the other was Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā, in al-Ḥākim’s work—namely Abū Zakariyyā al-Naysābūrī, a trustworthy and meticulous narrator, and one of al-Bukhārī’s and Muslim’s shaykhs.
Someone may say: Perhaps they had not come across this narration of al-Ḥākim’s?
I say: That is possible, even though they attributed it to him (p. 185). For I have established with certainty that some hadith source-tracers steal references from some of my books, finding them an easy catch. There are many examples of this. It is most plainly exposed when one of my references contains an error—something from which no human being is free—or perhaps a typographical error: the thief copies it and is thereby exposed. An example will shortly follow of an error committed by the so-called Ḥassān ʿAbd al-Mannān. I say: Thus, it is possible that their attribution was of this kind: