Was Al-Hassan Al-Basri, may Allaah have mercy on him, using 'Tadlees'?

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.

Indeed, Al-Hassan Al-Basri was really using 'Tadlees'. Tadlees means to report a narration from someone as if one heard it directly from the narrator while in reality he did not. Many scholars reported this on him, among whom is Abu Al-Wafaa' in his book 'clarifying the names of Tadlees people.'  Moreover, Ibn Hajar mentioned that Al-Hassan Al-Basri used Tadlees in regard to the narrations reported by An-Nasaa'ee, and others and Ibn Habbaan said the same thing about him.

Nonetheless, Al-Hassan Al-Basri was an outstanding and devout scholar. It is believed that he did not report on the Prophet unless he was sure that the narration is authentic, and Ibn Hajar considered him among the second generation after the companions and he mentioned that it is acceptable from this category of successors to use Tadlees. Imaam Al-Bukhari and Muslim reported their narrations because they were great scholars, some of whom used Tadlees very little, and some of them did not use Tadlees except on trustworthy narrator.

Allaah Knows best.