Does this apply, O Shaykh, to the hadith of Zayd ibn Qudamah regarding pointing with the finger in the tashahhud?

The questioner : Does this apply, O Shaykh, to the hadith of Zayd ibn Qudamah regarding pointing?

The Shaykh : No, because the disagreement here in the hadith of Zayd is not from the weak narrators, but rather from the trustworthy ones. However, this narrator is a trustworthy and firm one, as was said in his biography, on one hand. Then, his narration of the hadith with the wording: does not contradict what the other trustworthy narrators reported, because he pointed with his finger, and pointing does not contradict moving linguistically. So, from these two groups or points, we conclude that we practically prefer the hadith of Zayd ibn Qudamah over the narration of the other trustworthy narrators. As for here, the example is a trustworthy memorizer who was contradicted, for instance, by five individuals, each of whom is weak in his memorization. If these people agree on narrating a hadith in a way that contradicts that individual trustworthy memorizer, the soul is more reassured by this group. But that is not the case if it were a weak narrator against a weak narrator; the soul is not reassured by preferring their narrations over that individual trustworthy one. In reality, between this and that, there are ranks and degrees, and these are among the subtleties of the science of hadith in which thoughts, opinions, and independent legal reasoning may fluctuate. For this reason, one must be very cautious in criticizing scholars who may disagree with us in this era. We disagree with many of the predecessors, and we may err or be mistaken. In that case, one should be very, very polite, because the matter is entirely relative.