Some weak hadiths are said by scholars to have been accepted by the Ummah; are they to be acted upon in Islamic legal rulings?

The questioner : There are hadiths about which some scholars say they are weak, but they say that the Ummah has agreed to accept these hadiths; is this to be relied upon in Islamic legal rulings? Like the hadith: .

The Shaykh : The Shaykh: The answer is: Yes, but there is no benefit in framing the question in this way. We say: If that hadith is separated from the consensus of the Ummah, does the reliance on the consensus fall away? And conversely, if the consensus is separated from the weak hadith, is that weak hadith to be relied upon? The answer is completely different. The consensus is relied upon even if there were no hadith at all, and the weak hadith is not relied upon if there is no consensus. So what is the benefit of this form of the question? There is nothing beneath it. Perhaps it has become clear?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : But what happens... is that a weak hadith gives a ruling and there is no consensus on it; so some say: Most scholars are on this weak hadith. In that case, the issue differs from the first scenario. If we strip the consensus from the weak hadith, we say it is relied upon. But if it is claimed that most scholars are on this hadith, and then we remove the hadith and only the madhhab remains, with most scholars being on it; does the argument stand on this majority? The answer is: No.
The Shaykh: Likewise—and this is mentioned in the terminology of hadith—they said: If there is a hadith that one of the Imams acted upon, building a ruling on it, that does not necessitate that the hadith is authentic in his view; because it is possible that he acted on this hadith not for the specific hadith and considering that it was established with him, but because of the establishment of another proof with him, and this other proof agreed with the hadith. For example, his madhhab might be that he relied on qiyas (analogical reasoning), and this qiyas is a valid and acceptable qiyas with him; so it agreed with the hadith at that time. It is then said: This hadith was acted upon by such-and-such an Imam, so is it authentic? The answer is: No. There is no necessary connection between an Imam’s adherence to a certain hadith and the hadith being authentic.