impartiality and fairness, with his own documentation of the hadith and his comments on it and its narrators, will find that he exerted no effort whatsoever in the verification he claimed in the title of his treatise. All he did was oppose me in my reliance on certain narrators and chains, and in citing them in support. Indeed, he equated the chains containing a liar with some unblemished chains free of such a narrator. Consider the summary he presented for the hadith through four chains: the first contains a liar, as does the third. The second, however, is free of severe weakness, since it is narrated by Zāfir ibn Sulaymān from Muḥammad ibn ʿUyaynah. Both are truthful, though weak in retention, as I cited there from the hadith master. They are suitable for corroboration, as is well established in hadith methodology.

As for the fourth, it is mursal, and its narrators are trustworthy; therefore, I deemed its chain good there.

So what did this respected researcher do?!

First: When documenting the first chain, which contains the liar, he explicitly stated that he had taken it from me. Yet he deceived the readers by failing to mention that I had made clear that it contained a liar. This would lead them to think that I had at least cited it in support! This is a falsehood from which a sincere researcher ought to rise above.

Second: Likewise, when he mentioned the following statement (p. 48):

“ The hadith has a mursal supporting report with the wording ...”

he gave them the impression that it was the result of his own research and effort! In reality, it was something he had obtained from me, for I had said there:

“I found for it a mursal supporting report with a good chain of transmission, with the wording ...”

He did this for two reasons:

One was to parade himself as possessing what he had not been given, for he is as described in the authentic hadith: