that they relied on my reference to al-Ḥākim by volume and page, without consulting his book directly. Had they done so, they would have seen “al-Qurashī”!

It has thus been established with certainty that their claim—that the narrator of the hadith is the weak ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Wāsiṭī—is false. Consequently, their claim that the hadith is weak is likewise false.

This is not called into question by what they mentioned regarding this weak narrator’s transmission from Sayyār, and Abū Muʿāwiyah’s transmission from him, as I had mentioned there. That is for two reasons:

First: It is an established principle among scholars that “your mentioning something does not negate anything else.” Because they overlooked this scholarly principle, they categorically denied it!

Second: There is nothing to prevent two narrators bearing the same name from both narrating from one shaykh or more, while one shaykh or more likewise narrate from both of them.

A well-known example is ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Mālik al-Jazarī al-Ḥarrānī, who was trustworthy, and ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Abī al-Mukhāriq al-Baṣrī, who was weak. Both narrated from some of the same shaykhs, such as Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, Ṭāwūs, ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ, and other eminent authorities. Isrāʾīl ibn Yūnus, the two Sufyans, and other trustworthy narrators transmitted from them both. Hence, the ḥāfiẓ said in al-Taqrīb, in the entry on ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Baṣrī:

“Al-Jazarī shared some of the same shaykhs, so the two may sometimes be confused by one who lacks understanding.”

Thus, if “ʿAbd al-Karīm” appears without attribution in a chain among those shared chains, while another narration identifies him as “ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jazarī,” it is plainly impermissible to claim that he is al-Baṣrī! This is precisely the case of those obstinate deniers; thus, they have indeed been struck by some of the splatter of the ḥāfiẓ’s foregoing remark.