The wording of the Hafiz regarding a narrator, "truthful but makes mistakes," and other such phrases: sometimes you grade the hadith up with it, and sometimes you grade it down.

The questioner : The wording of the Hafiz Ibn Hajar regarding a narrator: he might say "truthful but makes mistakes" or "truthful but makes mistakes," and so on. We find that sometimes you grade the hadith up with these phrases, saying "so-and-so is in it," and sometimes you grade it down, even though it contains a man with this description. Is there a specific criterion? Or...?

The Shaykh : Is there what?

The questioner : A criterion for this matter?

The Shaykh : The criterion is to return to the words from which Ibn Hajar derived the terms I mentioned earlier. I am not a specialist in Ibn Hajar's work—thankfully, I am not able to be—so I may take from his statement and leave it, or I may rely on his statement and not rely on it. Why? Because I do not rely on his summary that he placed in his *Taqrib*, but rather I return to the original, which is *al-Tahdhib*. Sometimes I agree with him, and sometimes I differ from him. Those who know this reality ask themselves the same question you asked. For example, I might weaken a hadith in which he says of one of its narrators: "truthful but makes mistakes," while I grade as good a hadith that contains a narrator about whom he said the same thing he said about the narrator whose hadith I weakened. Why? Because in one narrator, about whom he said "truthful but makes mistakes," it appears to me that the hadith is good, while in another narrator, about whom he said the same phrase, it appears to me that the hadith is weak, not good. The good hadith, as the Hafiz al-Dhahabi (may Allah have mercy on him) says in his treatise *al-Muqni'ah fi Mustalah al-Hadith*: "The good hadith is one of the most subtle types of hadith sciences, because the scholar himself hesitates in his judgment; sometimes he grades the hadith as good, and sometimes he weakens it, and the narrator is the same." Why? Because for this narrator, it appears to him sometimes that the hadith is good, and sometimes it appears to him that the hadith is weak, but it is cited as evidence. It is a matter of subtlety in a specific place for a single Hafiz or hadith scholar. So what can be said when there are two hadith scholars, each with his own opinion and independent legal reasoning?

The questioner : So can it be said that this category is subject to circumstantial evidence? It is possible that the same narrator has a hadith graded as good in one context?

The Shaykh : It is subject to circumstantial evidence for the scholars, but for the beginners...

The questioner : Ibn Hajar himself?

The Shaykh: No.

The questioner : He grades the hadith as good.

The Shaykh : Ibn Hajar himself, when he says "truthful," means that his hadith is good, and when he says "truthful but makes mistakes," he means that his hadith is weak but cited as evidence. However, his independent legal reasoning may change in some applications, but as a rule, this is his rule.