"truthful, but he became confused before his death, and the criterion is that whoever heard from him in (Baghdad) did so after the confusion." I said: And Muʿādh ibn Muʿādh, who is al-ʿAnbarī al-Baṣrī, would have heard from him before the confusion, as explicitly stated by al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿIrāqī in "al-Taqyīd wa-al-Īḍāḥ" (p. 402), and followed by Ibn al-Kayyāl (293-295). Thus, the defect is removed, and the isnād is authentic, and all praise is due to Allāh. This is from His grace and guidance in my service to the sunnah and defending it. I say this because I recently came across a small treatise by an unknown author in this noble science; he named it "al-Manhaj al-Ṣaḥīḥ fī al-Ḥukm ʿalá al-Ḥadīth al-Nabawī al-Sharīf" by ʿĀdil Murshid. In its introduction, he mentioned that he is a student of Shaykh Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ. It became clear to me from it that he knows nothing of this science except imitation and transmission from here and there, also with ignorance of the science of terminology, as he says (p. 24): "The defect is perceived by the singularity of the narrator." This is a mistake; because if the narrator is reliable and singularly reports a ḥadīth, it is authentic unless it contradicts someone more reliable or more numerous. The defect is perceived by contradiction, not singularity. I do not wish to respond to him now or to the errors in his small treatise, because time is too limited to respond to such things. Although it became clear to me that his composition was motivated by deep-seated malice, he chose four authentic ḥadīths that I had authenticated in some of my books, and he weakened all of them. One of them was authenticated by a group including Muslim, Ibn Ḥibbān, and others, which is his saying (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam): "Allāh created the soil on Saturday..." the ḥadīth. He claimed it was defective due to its contradiction with the Qurʾān, a claim I have refuted; rather, I have demonstrated its falsehood in several of my books such as: "Mukhtaṣar al-ʿUlū" (111-112), this series (1833), and the commentary on "al-Mishkāt" (5735). The individual referred to did not bring anything new to support his claim, but merely regurgitated what others have said, which I have already refuted