Is a hadith with a narrator of poor memory in its chain considered hasan in itself?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Is a hadith with a narrator of poor memory in its chain considered hasan in itself?
The Shaykh : A narrator of poor memory can indeed be so; because regarding the term "poor memory," I have seen al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar say about some of them: that "poor memory" does not mean that his poor memory predominates over his good memory. Is the answer clear?
The questioner : Yes, so how is that possible?
The Shaykh : It is possible. Why am I being cautious in this answer? Because I have seen some students—and they have a right to do so, but in the end they are mistaken—rely on the phrase of al-Hafiz in *al-Taqrib*, as if the author of *al-Taqrib* had finalized the rulings on the narrators, the ink had dried, and the matter was concluded! That is not the case. As we mentioned—I think after the midday prayer—he often says about a narrator that his status is unknown, then it becomes clear that he is truthful, or he says—sometimes—that he is acceptable, and his authentication is mentioned in *al-Tahdhib* by some of the early imams. So if al-Iskandari says in *al-Taqrib* about a certain narrator that he is a truthful narrator of poor memory, or perhaps he makes mistakes, or he has errors; he places him in the fourth rank, where his hadith is not graded hasan and is only used as supporting evidence. It may be that a researcher did not place him in the fourth rank, but rather in the sixth, where his hadith is graded hasan. He may have been described in *al-Taqrib* as having poor memory, and it may have been explicitly stated that he was placed in the fourth rank, but the researcher does not understand from the one who described this man as having poor memory that he is actually in the fourth rank; unless the one who described him as having poor memory held that as his methodology, like the methodology of Ibn Hajar in *al-Taqrib* itself. In truth, I sense that there are subtleties in the science of terminology that differ from one hafiz to another, and from one critic to another, and so on.
The Shaykh : A narrator of poor memory can indeed be so; because regarding the term "poor memory," I have seen al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar say about some of them: that "poor memory" does not mean that his poor memory predominates over his good memory. Is the answer clear?
The questioner : Yes, so how is that possible?
The Shaykh : It is possible. Why am I being cautious in this answer? Because I have seen some students—and they have a right to do so, but in the end they are mistaken—rely on the phrase of al-Hafiz in *al-Taqrib*, as if the author of *al-Taqrib* had finalized the rulings on the narrators, the ink had dried, and the matter was concluded! That is not the case. As we mentioned—I think after the midday prayer—he often says about a narrator that his status is unknown, then it becomes clear that he is truthful, or he says—sometimes—that he is acceptable, and his authentication is mentioned in *al-Tahdhib* by some of the early imams. So if al-Iskandari says in *al-Taqrib* about a certain narrator that he is a truthful narrator of poor memory, or perhaps he makes mistakes, or he has errors; he places him in the fourth rank, where his hadith is not graded hasan and is only used as supporting evidence. It may be that a researcher did not place him in the fourth rank, but rather in the sixth, where his hadith is graded hasan. He may have been described in *al-Taqrib* as having poor memory, and it may have been explicitly stated that he was placed in the fourth rank, but the researcher does not understand from the one who described this man as having poor memory that he is actually in the fourth rank; unless the one who described him as having poor memory held that as his methodology, like the methodology of Ibn Hajar in *al-Taqrib* itself. In truth, I sense that there are subtleties in the science of terminology that differ from one hafiz to another, and from one critic to another, and so on.
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.