وَحَدَّثَنَا الْحَسَنُ الْحُلْوَانِيُّ، قَالَ: سَمِعْتُ عَفَّانَ، قَالَ: سَمِعْتُ أَبَا عَوَانَةَ، قَالَ: مَا بَلَغَنِي عَنِ الْحَسَنِ حَدِيثٌ إِلَّا أَتَيْتُ بِهِ أَبَانَ بْنَ أَبِي عَيَّاشٍ فَقَرَأَهُ عَلَيَّ.
Translation: Al-Ḥasan al-Ḥulwānī reports through ʿAffān that Abū ʿAwānah used to take reports attributed to al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī to Abān b. Abī ʿAyyāsh, who would read them back to him.
“He read it to me” establishes an act of reading, not the reliability of Abān’s underlying material. Al-Nawawī highlights the adverse criticism of Abān. The method of receiving a report and the reliability of its source are distinct questions.
Al-Nawawī’s criticism is more specific than the general label “weak.” He explains: «كَانَ يُحَدِّثُ عَنِ الْحَسَنِ بِكُلِّ مَا يُسْأَلُ عَنْهُ، وَهُوَ كَاذِبٌ فِي ذَلِكَ»—Abān would narrate something from al-Ḥasan whenever asked about it, falsely claiming that attribution. The defect concerns the truth of Abān’s attribution to al-Ḥasan, not whether Abān physically read the material aloud. It neither impugns all reports of al-Ḥasan nor invalidates recitation as a transmission method.