Muslim

That is from him so that the cause of tadlis may be removed from them. So whoever seeks that without being a mudallis, in the manner claimed by the one whose statement we have related, we have not heard that from any of those whom we have named, nor have we named any of the imams. Among that is that Abdullah ibn Yazid al-Ansari, who saw the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, narrated from Hudhayfah and from Abu Mas’ud al-Ansari, and from each of them a hadith which he attributes to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and in his narration from them there is no mention of hearing from them, nor have we preserved in any of the narrations that Abdullah ibn Yazid directly addressed Hudhayfah and Abu Mas’ud with any hadith at all, nor have we found mention of his seeing them in any specific narration, and we have not heard from any of the people of knowledge, neither those who have passed nor those whom we have met, that anyone criticized these two reports which Abdullah ibn Yazid narrated from Hudhayfah and Abu Mas’ud for any weakness in them. Rather, they and what resembles them, according to those of the people of knowledge of hadith whom we have met, are among the authentic and strong chains of transmission. They consider it proper to use what has been transmitted by them, and to use as proof what has come from them of the Sunnah and reports, even though, according to the claim of the one whose statement we have related earlier, they are weak and neglected, until the hearing of the narrator from the one he narrates from is established.