The Shaykh’s clarification that the scholars’ remarks regarding Ibn Lahi’ah concerned his precision, not his truthfulness

The Shaykh : This route is found in al-Bayhaqi’s al-Sunan al-Kubra, and its chain of narration consists entirely of trustworthy narrators, with no defect or criticism in any of them except for one man: Abdullah ibn Lahi’ah, the judge of Egypt in his time. It is not hidden from us that more than one scholar of hadith spoke about this man, but their remarks were not about his truthfulness; rather, they were about his precision and poor memory. They acknowledge his knowledge and virtue. It is sufficient for you to know that he was among the judges who ruled according to the Shari'ah. He was a distinguished man, but he was struck by a calamity: his library, which was full of hadith books and their parts, was destroyed by fire. It is the custom of hadith scholars that when they narrated to people in hadith gatherings, they would review their original sources so that they could deliver the hadith while still fresh in their memory of the sources, their wordings, and their chains. They would study the hadiths they intended to present to the people, both in their texts and chains, and then come out to deliver them. This is what Abdullah ibn Lahi’ah, the judge, did, as is the case with every scholar of hadith. When his books burned, he had no reference left except his memory. He began narrating hadiths, and errors appeared in them, sometimes in the chain and sometimes in the text. For example, a hadith that was actually a mawquf report from a Companion would be reported as the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) saying it, due to his assumption, as he no longer had the books he had heard from his hadith masters to refer to, nor did he attend the lesson before delivering it. Consequently, some of his assumptions and errors became apparent. In his biography, a phrase of utmost precision was used: “Abdullah ibn Lahi’ah is a truthful narrator whose memory deteriorated when his books burned.”