Did you include the hadiths regarding which you were hesitant about their authenticity in the series of weak and fabricated hadiths, such as some of the narrations of 'Ata ibn al-Sa'i, for example, even though they were not judged to be weak or fabricated?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : All right, under the title *Series of Weak and Fabricated Hadiths*, we find in this series some hadiths regarding which we are hesitant about their authenticity, such as some of the narrations of 'Ata ibn al-Sa'i, for example. The question is: did you include these hadiths under this title, *Series of Weak and Fabricated Hadiths*, even though they were not judged to be weak or fabricated, because they have the same ruling, or because it is not appropriate to create a separate book for this type of hadith, so they were closer to that?
The Shaykh : How were they not judged to be weak? How?
The questioner : I mean, for example, you say at the end of the investigation: "And I am hesitant, so I do not establish its authenticity nor its weakness," or "I am hesitant about its authenticity."
The Shaykh : Fine.
The questioner : Does this wording imply weakening?
The Shaykh : Weakening according to what is transmitted. And this does not stop at the example I gave; rather, it may extend to any hadith that is weakened due to a defect that invalidates its authenticity, such as a hadith containing a weak narrator. We judge it to be weak based on what is before us. As for what is hidden from us, that is conjecture; we do not judge it. So, if we hesitate about the authenticity of a hadith, that does not mean it is not weak at this moment, because the absence of a ruling of authenticity for it necessitates that, practically speaking, it is weak. Perhaps this connects us to the study of one of the sciences of hadith, which is the science concerning the mixed or the mixed narrators. As Ibn al-Salah and others before or after him mentioned, the mixed narrator has three states when a hadith comes from him: either we know that he narrated it before his confusion, in which case it is authentic; or we know that he narrated it after his confusion, in which case it is weak; or we do not know either of these, in which case it is hesitation. But if we look at this, our hesitation regarding a hadith is because we did not know whether he narrated it before the confusion, in which case it would be authentic, or after the confusion, in which case it would be weak. Practically speaking, the state of this hadith, regarding which we hesitate to rule on its authenticity, is weak because its authenticity has not been established. So, our saying in some hadiths that "I am hesitant" is because the state of this narrator suggests this hesitation to us. But practically speaking, it does not mean that we do not weaken it; rather, it is weak due to our ignorance of whether he narrated it before the confusion. This is the reason we use this expression. And that does not mean that we hesitated to rule on its weakness; rather, it is a necessary consequence that it is weak, and that is all.
The Shaykh : How were they not judged to be weak? How?
The questioner : I mean, for example, you say at the end of the investigation: "And I am hesitant, so I do not establish its authenticity nor its weakness," or "I am hesitant about its authenticity."
The Shaykh : Fine.
The questioner : Does this wording imply weakening?
The Shaykh : Weakening according to what is transmitted. And this does not stop at the example I gave; rather, it may extend to any hadith that is weakened due to a defect that invalidates its authenticity, such as a hadith containing a weak narrator. We judge it to be weak based on what is before us. As for what is hidden from us, that is conjecture; we do not judge it. So, if we hesitate about the authenticity of a hadith, that does not mean it is not weak at this moment, because the absence of a ruling of authenticity for it necessitates that, practically speaking, it is weak. Perhaps this connects us to the study of one of the sciences of hadith, which is the science concerning the mixed or the mixed narrators. As Ibn al-Salah and others before or after him mentioned, the mixed narrator has three states when a hadith comes from him: either we know that he narrated it before his confusion, in which case it is authentic; or we know that he narrated it after his confusion, in which case it is weak; or we do not know either of these, in which case it is hesitation. But if we look at this, our hesitation regarding a hadith is because we did not know whether he narrated it before the confusion, in which case it would be authentic, or after the confusion, in which case it would be weak. Practically speaking, the state of this hadith, regarding which we hesitate to rule on its authenticity, is weak because its authenticity has not been established. So, our saying in some hadiths that "I am hesitant" is because the state of this narrator suggests this hesitation to us. But practically speaking, it does not mean that we do not weaken it; rather, it is weak due to our ignorance of whether he narrated it before the confusion. This is the reason we use this expression. And that does not mean that we hesitated to rule on its weakness; rather, it is a necessary consequence that it is weak, and that is all.