Muslim

And this statement—may Allah have mercy on you—regarding criticism of the chains of transmission is an invented, newly introduced statement, with no one having preceded its proponent to it, nor does he have any supporter among the people of knowledge for it. That is because the widespread, agreed-upon view among the people of knowledge regarding reports and narrations, both ancient and recent, is that every trustworthy man who narrates from someone like him a hadith, and it is possible and permissible for him to have met him and heard from him, since both of them were in the same era—even if there is no report at all that they met or spoke to each other—the narration is established and the proof by it is binding, unless there is clear evidence that this narrator did not meet the one from whom he narrates, or did not hear anything from him. But as long as the matter remains ambiguous and possible as we have explained, the narration is always considered as having been heard, until the evidence we have clarified is present.