Therefore...

Therefore, if the chain is dha’if, then there would be no evidence that the Prophet of Allah ever said those words at ‘Arafat. To al-Tirmidhi, the Messenger uttered delivered the hadith at ‘Arafat, and later at Ghadir Khumm. However, in the opinion of al-Albani, it is NOT established that the Prophet made the statement at ‘Arafat, even though it is true that he said them later at Ghadir Khumm. In rejecting the reliability of Zayd b. al-Hasan al-Anmati, ‘Allamah al-Albani has only Abu Hatim (d.

277 H) as his principal authority: “وزيد بن الحسن قد روى عنه سعيد بن سليمان وغير واحد من أهل العلم ". قلت: قال أبو حاتم، منكر الحديث، وذكره ابن حبان في " الثقات ". وقال الحافظ: " ضعيف ". (Al-Tirmidhi said): “As for Zayd b. al-Hasan, Sa’id b. Sulayman and others from the people of knowledge have narrated from him.” I (al-Albani) say: Abu Hatim said: “Munkar al-hadith” and Ibn Hibban mentioned him in al-Thiqat (The Trustworthy Narrators). Al-Hafiz said: “Dha’if”.

We therefore know the following about al-Anmati: Imam Ibn Hibban (d. 354 H) considers him thiqah (trustworthy), and has therefore included him in his al-Thiqat. Imam al-Tirmidhi (d. 279 H) accepts al-Anmati’s ahadith as being independently hasan. This shows that he considers him reliable, most probably saduq (very truthful) in status. Imam Abu Hatim (d. 277 H) calls him munkar al-hadith, meaning that his ahadith are “rejected”, very weak. Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani (d.

852 H) also declares al-Anmati to be dha’if. Needless to say, Abu Hatim was the only classical scholar who deemed al-Anmati to be unreliable. Therefore, al-Hafiz – a much later scholar – apparently only adopted this negative rating. As such, the primary, uncorroborated source of the criticism against al-Anmati was Abu Hatim only. Al-Hafiz relied upon the statements of the classical scholars to classify narrators.

Since Abu Hatim was the sole classical critic of al-Anmati, then al-Hafiz had certainly relied only upon the former for his “dha’if” grading. All these point in one direction only: Abu Hatim is the sole, unsupported primary critic of al-Anmati. We confirm absolutely too that no other classical Sunni hadith scientist levelled any criticism against al-Anmati apart from Abu Hatim. Therefore, if the criticism of Abu Hatim falls, then everything against al-Anmati collapses with it.

So, we ask: what is the probative value of uncorroborated testimonies of Abu Hatim concerning narrators?