—from which he learned this, for I am the one who popularized it in the present age; and all praise is due to Allah alone, at the beginning and at the end. This is one of the errors into which many latter-day critics fall, because they are unaware that it is not an absolute rule, as this objector and other novices imagine. I have pointed this out repeatedly on many occasions: a lenient scholar must not be alone in declaring a narrator trustworthy. That condition is met here, for al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar declared him trustworthy, as did al-Dhahabī. Moreover, he was one of the eminent Successors and served as a judge without remuneration. Ibn Mujāhid said:
“He was among the most eloquent of people. He was the teacher of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and ʿUmar would praise him and his eloquence in the Quran.”
A number of eminent Successors narrated from him, such as Zayd ibn Aslam, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, and others.
It is therefore no wonder that the imams we have mentioned declared him trustworthy. What, then, can be said of one who declares the hadith of this eminent man weak despite the hadith masters’ declarations that he was trustworthy? It can only be ignorance or feigned ignorance—both equally bitter.
- Some critical editors and annotators still take me to task without knowledge, thereby doing a disservice to this noble discipline. Some do so out of a concealed malice that is almost palpable; others because the contagion has spread to them; or perhaps in an effort to clarify the truth—Allah willing. I shall cite here one example and leave readers to judge it and state what they believe prompted it:
It will be stated under hadith 759 that ʿImrān al-Qaṭṭān, whose memory was weak, contradicted two trustworthy narrators in the chain of transmission of this hadith. They both narrated it from Qatādah, from al-Ḥasan, from Ziyād ibn Ribāḥ, from Abū Hurayrah. But ʿImrān narrated it from Qatādah, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Ribāḥ, from Abū Hurayrah. He thus omitted al-Ḥasan between Qatādah and Ibn Ribāḥ, and substituted ʿAbd Allah for Ziyād. I say: This is an obvious contradiction, one that would not escape even beginners in this discipline,