“Acceptable.”

All the other narrators in the chain of transmission are trustworthy and are listed in al-Tahdhīb, apart from al-Ṭabarānī’s teacher, Ibrāhīm ibn Hāshim al-Baghawī, who is trustworthy. Thus, the corroborating report is unobjectionable, and the chain is good. Allah knows best.

Thirdly—I had previously cited al-Ḥāfiẓ’s statement concerning al-Mubārak, that he practised tadlīs (concealment in transmission) and taswiyah (concealment by omitting an intermediary), and I referred to it above. What I now wish to establish is that his statement that he practised taswiyah is mistaken—perhaps a slip of the pen. The correct wording is to confine it to saying that he practised tadlīs, for two reasons:

First: this is what the hadith masters who accused him of concealment in transmission agreed upon, such as Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Abū Dāwūd, Abū Zurʿah, and others. All of them said: “When he says, ‘He narrated to us,’ he is reliable,” or, “trustworthy.”

Yaḥyā and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī—the latter’s wording—said:

“We wrote nothing from al-Mubārak except reports in which he said: ‘I heard al-Ḥasan.’”

I cited some of their statements there. This is the form of tadlīs which al-Ḥāfiẓ, in Tabaqāt al-Mudallisīn, calls tadlīs al-isnād (concealment in the chain of transmission). It is what they mean when they use the term without qualification: that he omits his own teacher from the chain.

As for tadlīs al-taswiyah (concealment by omitting an intermediary), it means doing the same with regard to one’s teacher—as stated in al-Ṭabaqāt—by omitting one’s teacher’s teacher. Al-Walīd ibn Muslim, a student of Imam al-Awzāʿī, became well known for this type of concealment in transmission: he would omit al-Awzāʿī’s teacher from his chain. Some contemporary scholars may overlook this type of concealment and accept his hadith if he explicitly states that he heard it from his own teacher. I gave an example of this in the foregoing addendum, no. (10), so consult it; and I drew attention to al-Walīd’s concealment in transmission