Our hands contain hadiths whose authenticity they were asked to verify, and which were criticized against them, yet we have not heard any of them issue this harsh generalization that Imam al-Dhahabi ultimately reached regarding them.

The scholar Ibn al-Wazir(1) said: This is a rare error, and infallibility is lifted from the imams, hadith masters, and scholars.

The scholar Ahmad al-Ghumari said: No one has said that al-Tirmidhi's authentication is rejected outright in an absolute sense. Rather, his authentication is accepted except in a few hadiths in which his judgment was weak, just as occurred with al-Bukhari, Muslim, al-Hakim, al-Nasa'i, and others(2).

Al-Hafiz al-'Iraqi(3) criticized this statement of al-Dhahabi, saying in his commentary on the hadith "Reconciliation is permissible among Muslims..."(4), verbatim: The author of "al-Mizan" discussed al-Tirmidhi's authentication of this hadith, mentioning al-Tirmidhi's authentication of it, then said: For this reason, scholars do not rely on al-Tirmidhi's authentication. I say (the speaker being al-Hafiz al-'Iraqi): What he transmitted from the scholars—that they do not rely on his authentication—is not sound, and people have continued to rely on his authentication. Moreover, the author (al-Dhahabi) has taken al-Bukhari to task for accepting many of--------------------------------------------
(1) In "Tanqih al-Anzar" 1/171.
(2) "Al-Fatawa wa al-Rasa'il al-Sughra" p. 60.
(3) In "Sharh al-Tirmidhi," volume five, folio 115, recto.
(4) Al-Tirmidhi (1352).