«ʿAn ʿIkrimah» attributes a report through a transmitter, whereas «samiʿtu ʿIkrimah» explicitly claims personal hearing. Al-Nawawī raises a genuine objection: ʿAbd al-Karīm might once have heard the report from ʿIkrimah, forgotten it, asked Ayyūb, and later remembered the original audition. Asking a question alone cannot logically disprove every earlier hearing.
Al-Nawawī’s answer is that Ayyūb’s judgment rested on additional circumstantial indications (qarāʾin), not an inference from the question alone. The commentary cites Sufyān b. ʿUyaynah, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī, Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and Ibn ʿAdī among scholars reporting his weakness. Naming the critics does not imply that every one of their individual arguments is supplied in this passage; the contextual grounds still need evaluation.