[tobaccoman]

Thank you for the information.

(One particular point isn't clear: Does the statement "This hadith isn't in the shorter one" refer to the hadith about neglecting salah?)

Perhaps al-Dhahabi himself modified the book (like preparing a second edition)?

It is of course entirely possible that a scholar may change his opinion about a certain matter (such as the authenticity of a narration). Furthermore, according to the following, al-Dhahabi disavowed a book he has written at a young age:

33. Al-`Uluw li al-`Ali al-Ghaffar ("The Exaltation of the All-High and Most-Forgiving"), a book written under Ibn Taymiyya's influence - as stated by al-Kawthari in his Maqalat - when al-Dhahabi was twenty-five and which he later disavowed as related by its copyist the hadith master Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi (d. 842):

Its author stated - as Allah is His witness - in his own hand-writing as I read it in the margin of the original manuscript written in the year 698:

"This book contains narrations against the unreliability of which I am cautioning the reader, and the statements of a number of people who spoke in outlandish terms. Neither do I subscribe to their terms, nor do I imitate them. May Allah forgive them! Nor will I ever consider myself bound by such terms. This is my belief, and I know that Allah – "There is nothing whatsoever like unto Him" (42:11)!"41

41Cited and photo-reproduced at the beginning of Shaykh Hasan `Ali al-Saqqaf's edition of al-Dhahabi's `Uluw (p. 3-4).