I said: He mentioned four ḥadīths in this chapter and remained silent about them, and none of them is used as evidence. Then he criticized the musnads by ʿUmar and Muslim, and the mursal ones for being mursal, which is a critique contrary to the principles; for his statement "and none of them is used as evidence" applies to every ḥadīth that is strong by its collective chains, with individual chains being slightly weak as here, except for the chain of ʿUmar ibn Qays. Thus, this weakening is contrary to what all scholars agree upon regarding strengthening ḥadīths with supporting and corroborating reports, and this is very clear to anyone who has even a whiff of this noble science, especially according to the principles of the Ḥanafīs who consider the mursal ḥadīth as evidence without restriction; whether it is also narrated as musnad from another chain or not; contrary to the Shāfiʿī school which uses the mursal ḥadīth as evidence if it is also narrated as connected from another chain as here. So the ḥadīth is authentic according to both schools; if not for fanaticism and the love of critique! The ḥadīth has already been mentioned in this "series" (2477).

(He said: What if your father had a debt, would you pay it off? He said: Yes. He said: Perform ḥajj on behalf of your father). It was narrated by Ibn Ḥibbān (6/121/3971- al-Iḥsān) through the chain of Ḥakīm ibn Saif, and by al-Ṭaḥāwī in "al-Mushkil" (3/221), and by al-Ṭabarānī in "al-Kabīr" (12/15/12332) through two other chains; all three from ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAmr from al-Aʿmash from Muslim al-Baṭīn from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr from Ibn ʿAbbās: that a man came to the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) and said: My father died and did not perform ḥajj, should I perform ḥajj on his behalf? He said ... and mentioned it