This speech comprises five categories:

1. The first: the authentic (ṣaḥīḥ), and it is permissible that by it he means the authentic in itself.
2. The second: that which resembles it, and it is possible that by it he means the authentic due to others.
3. The third: that which is close to it, and it may be that by it he means the fair (ḥasan) in itself.
4. The fourth: that which contains severe weakness.
5. And his statement, "and what I do not [mention]," is understood to mean that which contains weakness that is not severe (i.e., he passes over it and does not clarify it), so it is a fifth category.

If it is not supported [by other narrations], it is only suitable for consideration (iʿtibār); and if it is supported, it becomes fair due to others (ḥasan li-ghayrihi), that is, due to the collective body [of narrations], and it becomes suitable for use as evidence, constituting a sixth category.

And on the assumption that one concedes that his intended meaning of "suitable" (ṣāliḥ) is for use as evidence, this does not necessitate ruling that what he passed over is fair, for he holds that one may use weak narrations as evidence when nothing else exists on the matter, following the example of Aḥmad, may Allah be pleased with him.

And the eminent scholar Shaykh Muḥammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī, may Allah have mercy on him, said regarding Abū Dāwūd's statement in his "Risālah": "And what I did not mention anything about is suitable" — that is, either for consideration or for argument, and determining which of the two is dependent on the contextual indicator (qarīnah) that exists, as is the case with a homonym. And claiming that it means suitable for argument attributes to Abū Dāwūd something he did not say. He said—

(1) This was transmitted from al-Biqāʿī by Shaykh ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Abū Ghuddah in his critical edition of "Risālat Abī Dāwūd" within al-Rasāʾil al-Thalāth, pp. 42–43, and similar to al-Biqāʿī's statement is the statement of al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Sakhāwī in "Fatḥ al-Mughīth" 1/78.