The ruling on exposing the defects of parties and individuals and its relationship to the critique and vindication of narrators

Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The questioner says: Is speaking about contemporary parties by exposing their defects, as well as individuals who contradict the principles and methodology of the Salaf, considered part of the required critique and vindication of narrators?

Answer:
We have told you how many times that the critique and vindication of narrators is one of the sciences of the chain of narration, one of the sciences of hadith, and it is not undertaken by anyone but the hadith scholars. As for refuting the one who disagrees, this is not part of the critique and vindication of narrators; this is part of clarifying the truth, clarifying the truth and refuting falsehood. It is not in the category of the critique and vindication of narrators. We have no aim in criticizing the one we refute; no, we only clarify the truth and clarify the error of the one who is in error, and we have no aim regarding the individuals, so that it would be called critique and vindication of narrators.