What is the criterion for removing the obscurity of a narrator? Or what is the minimum number by which the obscurity of a narrator is removed? With an explanation of the criterion for a mass-transmitted report (mutawatir)?
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The questioner : , O Shaykh, regarding this multitude that removes obscurity, what is its minimum? What is the criterion for the minimum of this multitude?
The Shaykh : Do you mean the narrators authenticated by Ibn Huzaymah?
The questioner : Those who narrate from a narrator such that his obscurity is removed.
The Shaykh : How?
Al-Halabi : The narrators who, when they narrate from an unknown person, remove his obscurity.
The Shaykh : This is what I am referring to.
Al-Halabi : How many are they?
The Shaykh : I am telling him that this is what I understood, meaning the narrators who narrate from the one whom Ibn Huzaymah authenticated. This is his question, correct?
The questioner: Yes.
The Shaykh : It appears to me that this issue does not have a specific threshold or number, because you accept increase and decrease. This issue is like other issues; for example, the topic in which scholars of hadith terminology differed greatly and very much when they investigated the mass-transmitted report (mutawatir) and tried to set a limited number for it. When does it become mass-transmitted? Some said that the number of reports must come from more than one hundred paths. Then the number was lowered by some to ten narrators. Then they continued to differ, because it is not possible to set a limited limit for this issue.
The correct view in the issue of mass transmission (tawatur), in my opinion, is exactly like this issue you are asking about. If we imagine a hadith narrated by the four Caliphs, and a trustworthy person from the generation of the Successors (Tabi'un) narrated from each of them, such as Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib or his like, then the soul is reassured of the certainty that this hadith is authentic with certainty, so it is mass-transmitted (mutawatir). The number of those who narrated this hadith from the Companions is, for example, three or four. And the comprehensive definition that the scholars of hadith established is that it is what a group narrated from a group whose collusion in lying is impossible. And it is certain and beyond doubt that if a group of trustworthy people, whose trustworthiness is certain, narrate it, the strength of this narration is undoubtedly much stronger than if a similar number narrated it, but their authentication is not like the authentication of those first; that is, their authentication is the stronger position, but it is not certainty. So the number of these people in providing mass transmission and certainty is not like the provision of the number of the first group, and so on.
Likewise, if we say, for example, that one of the conditions of a mass-transmitted report (mutawatir) according to them is that it is not required to trace and know the biography of every narrator of the mass-transmitted report. Such that if a group of narrators known for their weakness in memory narrate a hadith, and their number is large and very large, their hadith also becomes mass-transmitted (mutawatir), even though these individual narrators are weak in themselves. Therefore, they said that it is not required in a mass-transmitted report to know the biographies of these narrators, because mass transmission is what makes the researcher's soul certain that their collusion in lying is impossible. If we know this difference in trustworthiness, precision, and fairness in the number of mass transmission, then it is not possible to set a limited number that is fixed and stopped at. Rather, that differs regarding the trustworthiness, fairness, and precision of these narrators of the mass-transmitted report; it may be few or many.
Likewise, our topic exactly: if the narrator, for example, is from the level of Ibn Lahi'ah, from that man whom Ibn Huzaymah authenticated; then here the soul demands an increase in the number to more than if the narrators from that man authenticated by Ibn Huzaymah were from the level of al-Layth ibn Sa'd. So the issue must be studied in each narrator with a specific subjective study. No named number is set such that it is shared in knowing this narrator who uniquely authenticated him by Ibn Huzaymah: is he from the famous category, that he is in the group of the unknown? Or is he from this exception we mentioned earlier, that he is trustworthy because of the narration of a group of trustworthy people, and the matter ends there?
It is not so, but rather every narrator requires a specific study of who narrated from him? If they are at the level of Imam al-Layth, for example, in terms of fame for trustworthiness, precision, and knowledge, and the like, then the soul is satisfied at that time for them to be three or four. But if they are like Ibn Lahi'ah, known for his poor memory, then at that time the soul demands a number greater than that number, and so on.
Yes.
The Shaykh : Do you mean the narrators authenticated by Ibn Huzaymah?
The questioner : Those who narrate from a narrator such that his obscurity is removed.
The Shaykh : How?
Al-Halabi : The narrators who, when they narrate from an unknown person, remove his obscurity.
The Shaykh : This is what I am referring to.
Al-Halabi : How many are they?
The Shaykh : I am telling him that this is what I understood, meaning the narrators who narrate from the one whom Ibn Huzaymah authenticated. This is his question, correct?
The questioner: Yes.
The Shaykh : It appears to me that this issue does not have a specific threshold or number, because you accept increase and decrease. This issue is like other issues; for example, the topic in which scholars of hadith terminology differed greatly and very much when they investigated the mass-transmitted report (mutawatir) and tried to set a limited number for it. When does it become mass-transmitted? Some said that the number of reports must come from more than one hundred paths. Then the number was lowered by some to ten narrators. Then they continued to differ, because it is not possible to set a limited limit for this issue.
The correct view in the issue of mass transmission (tawatur), in my opinion, is exactly like this issue you are asking about. If we imagine a hadith narrated by the four Caliphs, and a trustworthy person from the generation of the Successors (Tabi'un) narrated from each of them, such as Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib or his like, then the soul is reassured of the certainty that this hadith is authentic with certainty, so it is mass-transmitted (mutawatir). The number of those who narrated this hadith from the Companions is, for example, three or four. And the comprehensive definition that the scholars of hadith established is that it is what a group narrated from a group whose collusion in lying is impossible. And it is certain and beyond doubt that if a group of trustworthy people, whose trustworthiness is certain, narrate it, the strength of this narration is undoubtedly much stronger than if a similar number narrated it, but their authentication is not like the authentication of those first; that is, their authentication is the stronger position, but it is not certainty. So the number of these people in providing mass transmission and certainty is not like the provision of the number of the first group, and so on.
Likewise, if we say, for example, that one of the conditions of a mass-transmitted report (mutawatir) according to them is that it is not required to trace and know the biography of every narrator of the mass-transmitted report. Such that if a group of narrators known for their weakness in memory narrate a hadith, and their number is large and very large, their hadith also becomes mass-transmitted (mutawatir), even though these individual narrators are weak in themselves. Therefore, they said that it is not required in a mass-transmitted report to know the biographies of these narrators, because mass transmission is what makes the researcher's soul certain that their collusion in lying is impossible. If we know this difference in trustworthiness, precision, and fairness in the number of mass transmission, then it is not possible to set a limited number that is fixed and stopped at. Rather, that differs regarding the trustworthiness, fairness, and precision of these narrators of the mass-transmitted report; it may be few or many.
Likewise, our topic exactly: if the narrator, for example, is from the level of Ibn Lahi'ah, from that man whom Ibn Huzaymah authenticated; then here the soul demands an increase in the number to more than if the narrators from that man authenticated by Ibn Huzaymah were from the level of al-Layth ibn Sa'd. So the issue must be studied in each narrator with a specific subjective study. No named number is set such that it is shared in knowing this narrator who uniquely authenticated him by Ibn Huzaymah: is he from the famous category, that he is in the group of the unknown? Or is he from this exception we mentioned earlier, that he is trustworthy because of the narration of a group of trustworthy people, and the matter ends there?
It is not so, but rather every narrator requires a specific study of who narrated from him? If they are at the level of Imam al-Layth, for example, in terms of fame for trustworthiness, precision, and knowledge, and the like, then the soul is satisfied at that time for them to be three or four. But if they are like Ibn Lahi'ah, known for his poor memory, then at that time the soul demands a number greater than that number, and so on.
Yes.
Source
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