I reminded him there of this grave contradiction, which I do not think any Muslim who acknowledges the knowledge and virtue of these scholars would dare to oppose. In addition, I clarified to him the weakness of what he clung to in weakening the ḥadīth. When he reviewed that, he stubbornly resisted, acted arrogantly—as is his habit—and was obstinate. He wrote a lengthy response spanning five pages, containing nothing of knowledge, only his personal opinions, which are like "a mirage in a desert, which the thirsty one thinks is water" (Sūrah al-Nūr, 39). He is truly a slippery person; whenever he is confronted with irrefutable evidence, he evades it with his own interpretation. Take, for example, ʿAṭāʾ ibn Qays, the tābiʿī and imam—as described by al-Dhahabī. When we refuted his statement about him being "unknown in status" by pointing out that Muslim authenticated him and used him as evidence in his "Ṣaḥīḥ," and with the authentication of al-Ḥāfiẓ, he cleverly said: "Muslim did not authenticate him; he only mentioned him in the supporting evidence," then he referred to the ḥadīth he meant, which is in "Muslim" under number (477). This is something no one before him has said, and it contradicts what the preservers who documented the man, like al-Mizzī, al-Dhahabī, al-ʿAsqalānī, and others, have stated. They attributed it to Muslim without saying: "in the supporting evidence"! Whereas when they attributed it to "al-Bukhārī," they specified by saying with the symbol: "in commentary," which is due to their precision, which the aforementioned person overlooks or pretends to overlook because he does not trust their knowledge! Al-Mizzī even explicitly stated this, saying at the end of his biography: "al-Bukhārī used him as supporting evidence (meaning in commentary) with one ḥadīth (meaning this), and the others narrated from him." And what confirms this is the ḥadīth he referred to; for it is with Muslim, a ḥadīth between two ḥadīths regarding what the praying person says when he raises his head from bowing, and all three are authentic ḥadīths, none of which include someone whom Muslim did not use as evidence. And his claim is like someone who, if opposed by an opponent, would say about the narrator of the ḥadīth..