by any of the Muslims! Take what you wish from the books of men, and you will not find this absolute weakening, let alone it being described as famous!! The most that has been said about him is that he makes mistakes! And is there anyone who does not make mistakes other than the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam)?! Despite that, Ḥammād is described as precise and accurate in what he narrates from some of the Tābiʿīn; among them is Thābit al-Bunānī, the narrator of this ḥadīth in Muslim and others as you have seen. Imām Aḥmad said in "al-ʿIlal" (1/263 and 2/222): "Ḥammād ibn Salamah is the most reliable of people in [narrating from] Thābit al-Bunānī." Ibn al-Madīnī and others also said this. If the esteemed reader were to review his biography in the extensive books of men and history, they would see astonishing praise and elevation of his status. Suffice it to mention the words of the Imām of historians—who neither flatters nor conceals—the ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī, who included him in "Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ" and in "Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ," describing him as the ḥāfiẓ, the imām, the exemplar, the Shaykh of Islam, and then said: "I say: he was an ocean of knowledge, and he had errors due to the vastness of what he narrated; he is truthful and a proof... Alongside his leadership in ḥadīth, he was a great imām in Arabic, eloquent, a leader in the sunnah..." Ibn Ḥibbān said in "al-Thiqāt" (6/216): "There was none among his peers like him in Basra in virtue, religion, knowledge, devotion, steadfastness in the sunnah, and suppression of the people of innovation. None would disparage him in his time except a Qadarī or an innovating Jahmī, due to his manifesting the authentic sunnahs that the Muʿtazilah would deny."