The Shaykh's response to those who weakened the hadith of 'Adi ibn Hatim: "When he came as a Muslim, he entered upon the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) while he was reciting this verse: ((
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. And prayers and peace be upon the noblest of the prophets and messengers, our master and our prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions.
As for what follows:
And this verse, meaning the saying of the Exalted:[At-Tawbah 9:31], was explained by the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) to 'Adi ibn Hatim. That is, when he came as a Muslim, he entered upon the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) while he was reciting this verse. He said: "I said, 'They did not worship them'", and he said: It was narrated by Ahmad, al-Tirmidhi, who graded it hasan, and by 'Abd ibn Hamid, Ibn Sa'd, Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Tabarani, and others from weak chains. Al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Jarir, al-Bayhaqi, and al-Mizzi in *Tahdhib al-Kamal* narrated it from 'Adi.
The Shaykh : Who is it that says it is weak?
The questioner : Yasser...
The student: The researcher.
The Shaykh : ... What is the name of the book?
The questioner : *Al-Nahj al-Sadid fi Takhrij Ahadith Taysir al-'Aziz al-Hamid*
The Shaykh : The hadith came in...
The questioner : Yes, *Taysir al-'Aziz al-Hamid*.
The Shaykh : Not in the main text; meaning, he narrated it and he is tracing it to its sources.
The questioner : ...
The Shaykh : Yes
The questioner : And Ibn Jarir, al-Bayhaqi, and al-Mizzi in *Tahdhib al-Kamal* from 'Adi ibn Hatim with a weak chain. Al-Tirmidhi said: "This is a strange hadith; we do not know it except from the hadith of 'Abd al-Salam ibn Harb and Ghatif ibn A'yan, and it is not well known in hadith". End of quote. I said: Al-Daraqutni weakened it, and al-Hafiz affirmed its weakness in *al-Tahdhib*. It was also narrated by Ibn Jarir and al-Bayhaqi from the route of Habib ibn Abi Thabit from Abu al-Bakhtari from Hudhayfah, as a mawquf (stopping at a Companion) with its meaning, and its chain is weak and broken. Habib was a tadlis narrator and he used the 'an' (elided) style, and Abu al-Bakhtari did not hear from Hudhayfah. *Jami' al-Tahsil*. The hadith was graded hasan by the Shaykh, the muhaddith, Nasir al-Din al-Albani, in *Ghayat al-Maram*, and he referred the discussion of it to his takhrij of the hadiths of the book *The Four Terminologies* by al-Mawdudi. However, I did not find it there, so let it be known.
The student: Let it be known.
The questioner : Yes, let it be known. And attributing the hadith to Ahmad is a mistake, and therefore al-Suyuti did not attribute the hadith to him in *al-Durr al-Manthur*. End of quote.
The Shaykh : Is this the statement?
The questioner : This is it.
The Shaykh : Yes, criticism like this is considered irrelevant, as they say, because the fact that a weak hadith is strengthened by the multiplicity of routes is not a fixed, rigid rule that everyone with some knowledge of this science, in terms of terminology and the critique and vindication of narrators, shares in knowing or in applying well. We observe here that he criticized both routes with a criticism that added nothing to me, because I did not say in either route, or in one of them, that it is good in itself. So what is the point of the criticism? He did not address the point of the criticism. But a person understands, especially one with some knowledge of the principles of criticism, that his viewpoint is that this route is not strengthened by the other route. Do you see? Does this mean that the observation I made is hidden from the one who graded the hadith hasan? That is, is it hidden from al-Albani or others that this first chain is weak and the second is also weak? Is that conceivable? So what did this person do? He expressed his opinion, and there is no objection to that. But if this opinion is not clearly presented as a criticism, then there is no benefit except to say, "This is our opinion, and that is the opinion of Shaykh al-Albani." Or is this how the benefit of spreading knowledge is achieved? Now, when Shaykh al-Albani traces this hadith, he notes that the hadith is in the context of explaining a verse, and that this verse cannot be explained except by what came in this hadith. One is a marfu' (traced to the Prophet) and the other is a mawquf (stopping at a Companion). If we look past both routes and ask this tracer who weakened the hadith, "What is the meaning of the verse in your view?" he cannot come up with anything other than what came in the hadith. In that case, the whole matter is composed of three things: first, the apparent meaning of the verse; second, the first route; and third, the second route, which is the mawquf hadith of Hudhayfah. And in my opinion, he only noted the takhrij aspect and did not note the semantic aspect. That is, he discussed the hadith in terms of its narration (riwayah) and did not discuss the hadith in terms of its understanding (dirayah). If he had considered that the verse does not allow an interpretation other than what came in the hadith, he would have found that al-Albani's grading of the hadith as hasan—first, and this is apparent—was not a grading of it for its own sake, but a grading for the sake of something else. Because what he did of weakening, al-Albani also did, but he said the hadith is hasan because he saw that the meaning present in the verse is present in these two hadiths, the first being marfu' and the second mawquf. This is what I have present with me now. If there is something else.
The questioner : Everyone has his own ijtihad (independent legal reasoning).
The Shaykh : Yes
The questioner : Everyone has his own ijtihad in this matter.
The Shaykh : Yes, but do you think that everyone who writes such a writing is certified as being among the people of ijtihad? This issue in the science of hadith is like any issue in the jurisprudence of hadith: is it permissible for every person to say, "I understand from this hadith such and such, and I do not care if others disagree with me"?
As for what follows:
And this verse, meaning the saying of the Exalted:
They have taken their scholars and monks as lords besides Allah
اتخذوا أحبارهم ورهبانهم أربابا من دون اللهThey forbade them what is lawful and made lawful for them what is forbidden, so they followed them, and that is their worship of them.
إنهم حرموا عليهم الحلال وحللوا لهم الحرام فاتبعوهم فذاك عبادتهم إياهمThe Shaykh : Who is it that says it is weak?
The questioner : Yasser...
The student: The researcher.
The Shaykh : ... What is the name of the book?
The questioner : *Al-Nahj al-Sadid fi Takhrij Ahadith Taysir al-'Aziz al-Hamid*
The Shaykh : The hadith came in...
The questioner : Yes, *Taysir al-'Aziz al-Hamid*.
The Shaykh : Not in the main text; meaning, he narrated it and he is tracing it to its sources.
The questioner : ...
The Shaykh : Yes
The questioner : And Ibn Jarir, al-Bayhaqi, and al-Mizzi in *Tahdhib al-Kamal* from 'Adi ibn Hatim with a weak chain. Al-Tirmidhi said: "This is a strange hadith; we do not know it except from the hadith of 'Abd al-Salam ibn Harb and Ghatif ibn A'yan, and it is not well known in hadith". End of quote. I said: Al-Daraqutni weakened it, and al-Hafiz affirmed its weakness in *al-Tahdhib*. It was also narrated by Ibn Jarir and al-Bayhaqi from the route of Habib ibn Abi Thabit from Abu al-Bakhtari from Hudhayfah, as a mawquf (stopping at a Companion) with its meaning, and its chain is weak and broken. Habib was a tadlis narrator and he used the 'an' (elided) style, and Abu al-Bakhtari did not hear from Hudhayfah. *Jami' al-Tahsil*. The hadith was graded hasan by the Shaykh, the muhaddith, Nasir al-Din al-Albani, in *Ghayat al-Maram*, and he referred the discussion of it to his takhrij of the hadiths of the book *The Four Terminologies* by al-Mawdudi. However, I did not find it there, so let it be known.
The student: Let it be known.
The questioner : Yes, let it be known. And attributing the hadith to Ahmad is a mistake, and therefore al-Suyuti did not attribute the hadith to him in *al-Durr al-Manthur*. End of quote.
The Shaykh : Is this the statement?
The questioner : This is it.
The Shaykh : Yes, criticism like this is considered irrelevant, as they say, because the fact that a weak hadith is strengthened by the multiplicity of routes is not a fixed, rigid rule that everyone with some knowledge of this science, in terms of terminology and the critique and vindication of narrators, shares in knowing or in applying well. We observe here that he criticized both routes with a criticism that added nothing to me, because I did not say in either route, or in one of them, that it is good in itself. So what is the point of the criticism? He did not address the point of the criticism. But a person understands, especially one with some knowledge of the principles of criticism, that his viewpoint is that this route is not strengthened by the other route. Do you see? Does this mean that the observation I made is hidden from the one who graded the hadith hasan? That is, is it hidden from al-Albani or others that this first chain is weak and the second is also weak? Is that conceivable? So what did this person do? He expressed his opinion, and there is no objection to that. But if this opinion is not clearly presented as a criticism, then there is no benefit except to say, "This is our opinion, and that is the opinion of Shaykh al-Albani." Or is this how the benefit of spreading knowledge is achieved? Now, when Shaykh al-Albani traces this hadith, he notes that the hadith is in the context of explaining a verse, and that this verse cannot be explained except by what came in this hadith. One is a marfu' (traced to the Prophet) and the other is a mawquf (stopping at a Companion). If we look past both routes and ask this tracer who weakened the hadith, "What is the meaning of the verse in your view?" he cannot come up with anything other than what came in the hadith. In that case, the whole matter is composed of three things: first, the apparent meaning of the verse; second, the first route; and third, the second route, which is the mawquf hadith of Hudhayfah. And in my opinion, he only noted the takhrij aspect and did not note the semantic aspect. That is, he discussed the hadith in terms of its narration (riwayah) and did not discuss the hadith in terms of its understanding (dirayah). If he had considered that the verse does not allow an interpretation other than what came in the hadith, he would have found that al-Albani's grading of the hadith as hasan—first, and this is apparent—was not a grading of it for its own sake, but a grading for the sake of something else. Because what he did of weakening, al-Albani also did, but he said the hadith is hasan because he saw that the meaning present in the verse is present in these two hadiths, the first being marfu' and the second mawquf. This is what I have present with me now. If there is something else.
The questioner : Everyone has his own ijtihad (independent legal reasoning).
The Shaykh : Yes
The questioner : Everyone has his own ijtihad in this matter.
The Shaykh : Yes, but do you think that everyone who writes such a writing is certified as being among the people of ijtihad? This issue in the science of hadith is like any issue in the jurisprudence of hadith: is it permissible for every person to say, "I understand from this hadith such and such, and I do not care if others disagree with me"?