“For all these reasons, Ibn Hajar paid no heed to … Ibn Khuzaymah’s and al-Hakim’s strengthening of it”!
I say: Yet he did take heed of al-Hakim’s authentication of Anas’s hadith, and explicitly stated that its chain of transmission was authentic, as I mentioned shortly before. So why do you mention what is in your favour and conceal what is against you? Whose conduct is this?!
- On pp. 16 and 26, he attributed to Ibn Qudamah the statement: “In the view of those who permit it, the evidence of those who prohibit it has not been authenticated.”
In this, he ascribes to Ibn Qudamah what he did not say. For he is referring to Ibn Qudamah’s wording, which he himself quoted from him on p. 15, namely: “In their view, there is no evidence for prohibition.” These are two entirely different things. One of the foremost reasons for the Imams’ differences is that a hadith may not have reached one of them—as Ibn Taymiyyah stated. Thus, it is possible that the reason was that the hadith did not reach them, or that it reached them but they interpreted it differently, or that they did not consider it authentic. All of this is possible. Therefore, it is not permissible to construe Ibn Qudamah’s words as affirming that it reached them while denying its authenticity, as he very clearly does. Ibn Qudamah said, “There is no evidence,” which is broader than whether it reached them or did not reach them; he did not say, “It was not authenticated,” as he alleged. And he said, “evidence for prohibition,” not, “the evidence of those who prohibit,” so as to make it refer specifically to the hadith.
Was this false attribution due to ignorance of the distinction just mentioned, or to deliberate disregard? Either is equally bitter!
There are other matters in which he made false allegations against me, but this is not the place to explain them. Allah is the One whose help is sought.
Finally, however, I must draw attention to an important matter concerning the former position of “the one who declares hadiths weak” regarding the third hadith and others—a matter that confirms the characterization of him mentioned above.
This hadith was among the hadiths of Riyad al-Salihin that “the one who declares hadiths weak” retained in his edition of Riyad, no. (839), thereby agreeing with al-Nawawi’s authentication of it. How can this be, when he declared it weak in his “Discussion of the Albanists,” as has become clear from the refutation of him in this addendum?