I say: The aforementioned mild criticism, apart from not being from al-Dhahabi himself, is of no consequence, as will be shown.

Fifth: His statement, “He also included a biography of him in Tadhkirat al-Huffaz,” is entirely pointless, for he did not explain how he described him: did he declare him trustworthy or weak? Indeed, the latter is more likely to come to the reader’s mind, since he cited this only while discussing criticism of the man. Yet the fact is that al-Dhahabi’s entry on him in al-Tadhkirah indicates that he regarded him as trustworthy, not weak. Here is the text of his statement. He said (2/619): “Ibrahim al-Harbi deemed him trustworthy, despite knowing that he accepted dirhams”—that is, for narrating hadith—“as did Abu Hatim ibn Hibban. Al-Daraqutni said: ‘Truthful.’ As for his accepting dirhams for narration, he was poor and had many daughters. Abu al-Fath al-Azdi and Ibn Hazm said: ‘Weak.’”

Whoever knows the standing of Abu al-Fath al-Azdi, and the weakness mentioned in his biographical entry in al-Mizan and elsewhere, and knows Ibn Hazm’s anomalous divergence from the body of scholars in the science of narrator criticism—as he likewise diverged from them in jurisprudence—will attach no weight to their disagreement with the imams whose reliability in this field is established. It was for this reason that al-Dhahabi said in his entry on this al-Harith in al-Mizan: “He was a hadith master, knowledgeable in hadith, and possessed exceptionally elevated chains of transmission. He was criticized without proof.” By this, he indicated his rejection of Abu al-Fath’s and Ibn Hazm’s declaring him weak.

Among those who deemed him trustworthy were Ahmad ibn Kamil and Abu al-Abbas al-Nabbati. When al-Hafiz cited in al-Lisan al-Dhahabi’s aforementioned statement, “He is not a dependable authority,” he followed it with: “Although in al-Mizan he marked it beside it as ‘sound’; his convention is that one should rely on his declaring him trustworthy.”

In sum, al-Harith ibn Abi Usamah was a trustworthy hadith master; the criticism of those who spoke against him carries no weight. Al-Dhahabi was inconsistent in what he said about him, and the stronger of his views is what he stated in al-Mizan and al-Du'afa', namely, that he was trustworthy and truthful. His statement in al-Talkhis, “He is not a dependable authority,” is itself not dependable, because he said it from memory, and memory may betray one; whereas what he stated in the two aforementioned sources was stated only after