al-Hakim transmitted it through Uthman ibn Sa‘id al-Darimi, Bishr ibn Musa al-Asadi, and al-Harith ibn Abi Usamah al-Tamimi. All of them said: “Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Saylahini narrated to us; Yahya ibn Ayyub narrated to us …” Al-Hakim then said: “Jarir ibn Hazim narrated it from Yahya ibn Ayyub,” and he then cited his chain to him for it. Thus, these three trustworthy narrators corroborated al-Harith in narrating this hadith! It is not the practice of scholars to declare a hadith defective by criticizing one individual among a group who agree in transmitting it. Ahmad likewise corroborated him, saying (5/185): “Yahya ibn Ishaq narrated to us,” with the same chain.
The second point is that al-Dhahabi was not inattentive here. Rather, when he saw that the group had corroborated al-Harith, he did not consider it permissible, in this field of knowledge, to impugn him, since that would plainly serve no purpose. The oversight, then, lies with someone else, not with him!
The third is that the hadith to which the writer referred, reporting that al-Dhahabi found it objectionable and said of it, “Al-Harith is not an authority,” has its defect in the teacher of al-Harith’s teacher: Abu ‘Amir al-Khazzaz, whose name was Salih ibn Rustam. He was weak on account of his retention, as indicated by al-Hafiz’s statement in al-Taqrib: “Truthful, but prone to many errors.” Al-Bukhari did not rely on him as evidence; rather, he narrated from him only in suspended form. Had the writer attributed the oversight to al-Dhahabi in this instance, he would have been correct.
The fourth is that what he transmitted from al-Dhahabi in al-Du‘afa’ wa al-Matrukin, by way of al-Manawi—namely, that he said of him, “Weak”—is incorrect. Such is the misfortune of relying on an intermediary source! Had the writer bypassed it and consulted Diwan al-Du‘afa’ wa al-Matrukin himself, he would have found the opposite of what al-Manawi reported. For al-Dhahabi said in al-Harith’s biographical entry therein (folio 152/1): “The compiler of al-Musnad; truthful. Some declared him weak.”