The Ruling on Acting Upon a Weak Hadith
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
May Allah keep you safe, Your Eminence the Shaykh. Your Eminence, you mentioned the weak hadith. When is it permissible to act upon a weak hadith?
Answer:
A weak hadith is not used as evidence, nor is it acted upon. It is only mentioned in the context of virtues, just as authentic hadiths are mentioned to encourage and warn regarding the virtues of deeds, in order to inspire people toward the well-known and established righteous deeds. For example, the hadiths about the virtue of prayer and the reward in it, the virtue of fasting, and the virtue of charity. In other words, some weak hadiths are mentioned to encourage and inspire people to do things like charity, and the virtue of charity is well-known through authentic evidence. Likewise, the status of prayer is well-known through the evidence of the Shari'ah.
May Allah keep you safe, Your Eminence the Shaykh. Your Eminence, you mentioned the weak hadith. When is it permissible to act upon a weak hadith?
Answer:
A weak hadith is not used as evidence, nor is it acted upon. It is only mentioned in the context of virtues, just as authentic hadiths are mentioned to encourage and warn regarding the virtues of deeds, in order to inspire people toward the well-known and established righteous deeds. For example, the hadiths about the virtue of prayer and the reward in it, the virtue of fasting, and the virtue of charity. In other words, some weak hadiths are mentioned to encourage and inspire people to do things like charity, and the virtue of charity is well-known through authentic evidence. Likewise, the status of prayer is well-known through the evidence of the Shari'ah.
Source
شرح كتاب المنتقى من أخبار المصطفى صلى الله عليه وسلم [ برنامج إذاعي ]، بداية من باب حمل المحدث والمستجمر في الصلاة وثياب الصغار وما شُكَّ في نجاسته — islamhouse.com (7:30)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.