Explanation of the reason for the presence of weak hadiths in *Riyad al-Salihin*.

The Shaykh : However, due to the reason I mentioned, which is that the majority of later hadith scholars turned away from verification and toward mere compilation, this discipline did not reach the maturity it deserves. I mean by this a natural, innate reality: every discipline, when it is first begun, is immature and incomplete, and as time passes, it matures and its affairs become orderly. So when we find now, as you will hear, that Imam al-Nawawi explicitly states that he compiled this book and gathered it from authentic hadiths, and yet we see in it some weak and denounced hadiths that do not fit the goal he aimed for or the purpose he intended, it is natural for some students to be surprised and ask how this can be, when he only intended authentic hadiths in this book? The answer is what I pointed to: the scholars did not continue their research and verification of authentic hadiths until this discipline reached the level it deserves. Rather, in every era and every century—and I do not say in every city—there were one, two, or three who devoted themselves to filtering authentic hadiths and distinguishing them from weak ones. Therefore, it is no surprise that some weak hadiths pass through us in the book *Riyad al-Salihin* by Imam al-Nawawi, in which he intended only authentic hadiths.