وَلَا أَحْسِبُ كَثِيرًا مِمَّنْ يُعَرِّجُ مِنَ النَّاسِ عَلَى مَا وَصَفْنَا مِنْ هَذِهِ الْأَحَادِيثِ الضِّعَافِ وَالْأَسَانِيدِ الْمَجْهُولَةِ، وَيَعْتَدُّ بِرِوَايَتِهَا بَعْدَ مَعْرِفَتِهِ بِمَا فِيهَا مِنَ التَّوَهُّنِ وَالضَّعْفِ، إِلَّا أَنَّ الَّذِي يَحْمِلُهُ عَلَى رِوَايَتِهَا وَالِاعْتِدَادِ بِهَا إِرَادَةُ التَّكَثُّرِ بِذَلِكَ عِنْدَ الْعَوَامِّ، وَلِأَنْ يُقَالَ: مَا أَكْثَرَ مَا جَمَعَ فُلَانٌ مِنَ الْحَدِيثِ وَأَلَّفَ مِنَ الْعَدَدِ.
Translation: As for many who turn toward the weak hadith reports and unknown chains we have described, and still count their transmission as creditable after learning of the frailty and weakness they contain, I think they are driven to narrate and count them chiefly by the desire to multiply their collections in the eyes of ordinary people, so that it will be said, “How many hadith reports so-and-so collected, and what an enormous number he compiled!”
The target is not the size of a collection itself, but treating known weakness as creditable and seeking public acclaim from the total. A qualified scholar’s openly annotated collection of weak routes for comparison, corroboration or defect analysis serves a different purpose.