defend the ḥadīth of the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) with justice. Rather, it is the method of those with desires who declare authentic ḥadīth as weak, then seek for them non-detrimental defects. Here is the example before you, dear reader: for this Layth, his weakness is not severe to the extent that he cannot be used as supporting evidence, as this pretender has suggested. Muslim included him in "Ṣaḥīḥ" alongside others, which clearly indicates that he is used as supporting evidence. The reason was explained by the critical ḥadīth scholar, Imām al-Dhahabī, who said in "al-Kāshif": "He has slight weakness due to poor memory." This is the meaning of what Ibn ʿAdī concluded in Layth's biography in his book "al-Kāmil" (6/87) after narrating from a group that weakened him: "He has sound ḥadīth, and Shuʿbah, al-Thawrī, and others among the trustworthy narrated from him. Despite his weakness, his ḥadīth is written." All of this indicates that merely being a weak narrator does not mean, according to scholars, that he cannot be used as supporting evidence, as I explained previously. This is something this man is ignorant of, and therefore he has excessively expanded in weakening authentic ḥadīth. And Allāh is the one whose help is sought. Among his wonder and arrogance is that he strengthens his mentioned weakening with Shaykh Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ, concluding with: "Shaykh Shuʿayb agreed with me on weakening it!" And I do not know—by Allāh—if he is truthful in this, and whether he managed to sway the Shaykh to agree with him by some means or another?! But I do know that reality contradicts him in some of those ḥadīth at least, and this is one of them; for despite his claim of the mentioned agreement, I saw that the Shaykh disagreed with him in his commentary on "Sharḥ al-Sunnah" (14/