The principle upon which the Shaykh bases his ruling in grading a portion of a hadith as good based on corroborating narrations.

The questioner : From your words, O Shaykh, we understand that if you, or any hadith scholar, grade a hadith as authentic or good based on the totality of its chains, and the texts are different; does this mean—this is what I am asking now—that we can say this grading as good applies to the different texts, or only to the text around which this hadith scholar revolves? For example, you mention a hadith in *Al-Sahihah* and say: it is authentic or good; a specific text. Then you mention other chains with texts that have an added word or a missing word, or differ in some other way. Then you say, for example: "From the totality of these chains, we reach the conclusion that it is good." Do these chains, or these texts in the chains you mentioned, fall under this goodness, or is it only that specific hadith that is good?

The Shaykh : That specific hadith.

The questioner : And these texts...

The Shaykh : ...the principle around which we revolve and upon which we base our rulings, except for what is easy... or beneficial. If we examine a hadith containing a single phrase—we give this example to clarify the matter for minds—a hadith containing a single phrase, and this hadith does not have a valid chain, so we search—in this situation—in the printed and manuscript hadith books, as much as time and effort allow, hoping to find what corroborates this text, which is a single phrase. If we find corroborating narrations for it, and these corroborating narrations add other phrases to this text and this phrase, we list them and assume that all of them have weak chains. I take from these corroborating narrations what the corroborating narrations agree upon corroborating. It is assumed here that they agreed upon this single phrase. This single phrase is what I place as the text in *Al-Sahihah*. Then I list the chains to support the establishment of this phrase. The hadith may contain two or three phrases or more. I say: this hadith containing this single phrase, or this narration containing this single phrase, is suitable to be a corroborating narration for it, but it is not suitable to be a corroborating narration for the other narration mentioned below it. Is this clear?

The questioner : Do you mean that the additions do not enter into this ruling?

The Shaykh : They do not enter. Yes, indeed. The hadith may be long and contain an addition to a correct story. I do not rely on this hadith that is long; rather, I mention it as a corroborating narration for the hadith that is limited to what is less than the long narration. So I make this long narration a corroborating narration for the short narration, and not the other way around! This is how I proceed, and this is how it should be.
The Shaykh: And I am mentioning an example now. There is in *Al-Sahihah*, I do not know in which part, perhaps in the second volume, the hadith of Anas ibn Malik that al-Tirmidhi narrated: that a man said: "O Messenger of Allah, when one of us meets his brother, should he bow to him?" He said: . He said: "Should he embrace him?" He said: . He said: "Should he kiss him?" He said: . He said: "Should he shake his hand?" He said: .
The Shaykh: I traced this hadith in *Al-Silsilah*.

The questioner : The first volume.

The Shaykh : In the first one?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : It is this embracing, it is the embracing, and the corroborating narration here. So I traced the hadith with part of its chain in al-Tirmidhi, and I strengthened it with the corroborating narrations that I cited below it. But it became clear later that the addition: "Should he embrace him or hug him" did not come in those corroborating narrations. So I deleted it, and in the edition I am preparing for a new printing, I placed a dot in its place, as I did in *Sahih al-Jami'*; do you remember this style?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Why? Because al-Tirmidhi was unique with this addition and the chain is weak. The corroborating narrations that corroborate the other sections did not contain any mention of the addition: "Should he hug him or embrace him? He said: ". This addition remained with the original weakness that we take from al-Tirmidhi's narration. As I said earlier, a person may err and make a mistake. But the principle is what I clarified for you earlier, and perhaps it is understood—if Allah wills.
The Shaykh: Then, incidentally, I found a hadith when I undertook the tracing, or rather the abridgment, of the book *Al-Shama'il* by al-Tirmidhi, and then by verifying the speech on its hadiths, and distinguishing its authentic from its weak. I mentioned there the narration of Abu al-Tayyihan when the Messenger (peace be upon him) visited him in his date palms. He was outside his house, and his wife welcomed the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his companions, and seated them under the date palms. When he asked about Abu al-Tayyihan, she said: "He went to draw water for us, or to fetch sweet water for us." Then he came quickly. When he saw the Messenger (peace be upon him) with them, he embraced him. So I took from this what permits embracing and hugging, even if only at times. This confirms that the uniqueness of al-Tirmidhi's narration, and I think it is from the narration of Hanzalah ibn Abi Sufyan, may Allah know best, from Anas ibn Malik. Is the book in front of you now?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Ah, so Hanzalah was unique with this addition, so we finally turned away from it, especially when we found Abu al-Tayyihan's embracing of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his hugging of him, and the approval of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) of that. So we took from it what is contrary to what came in the hadith of Hanzalah from Anas ibn Malik in al-Tirmidhi.

The questioner : From where is the hadith of Abu al-Tayyihan?

The Shaykh : In *Mukhtasar al-Shama'il*. May Allah reward you.

The questioner : Regarding the corroborated hadith... it was mentioned that Ibn Rajab and Ibn Kathir strengthen a hadith...; so here you mean the unknown...

The Shaykh : No, it is broader than that.

The questioner : Meaning your reading of weak hadiths.

The Shaykh : It is broader than that.

The questioner : I remember reading in *Al-Da'if* that the narrator must be known. These are the weak hadiths in the first or second part of the response to al-Kawthari, where it was mentioned that... first, the unknown identity, then this statement is said.

The Shaykh : There is a principle—may Allah reward you. I agree with you in this, and I am not with Ibn Kathir or Ibn Rajab. But I mention to you examples and models from the opinion of some of the later memorizers that they smooth out and accept the narration of the second unknown narrator out of good opinion of him if he is a Successor. As for the principle, and I believe—and this is what I explicitly researched recently with some of the distinguished scholars—that if the concealed man (mustawr) is narrated from by a group of trustworthy narrators, whether he is a Successor or below that, and no denounced narration is known from the narrations of these trustworthy narrators from that concealed man; then at that time, this concealed man takes the rank of the truthful (siddiq), if not the rank of the trustworthy (thiqah). I mentioned ten examples on this, I think in my book *Tammam al-Mannah fi al-Ta'liq 'ala Fiqh al-Sunnah*, quoting from al-Dhahabi and Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani; how they authenticated those whom no one before them authenticated, and they did not notice in that except what I mentioned to you; namely: that there is a narrator who is considered unknown in status, but when they found many trustworthy narrators narrating from him, they were reassured that this concealed narrator is a trustworthy and truthful person; because if he were not so, these trustworthy narrators would not have narrated from him. And if there had been anything denounced in his narrations, it would have become clear through the narrations of these trustworthy narrators from him. But my previous example is that some of the Imams, with a special look at the unknown identity among the Successors, ... his hadith and they grade it as good and use it as evidence. As for the principle, it is that he has many narrators from him, so he moves from the unknown status to being truthful or trustworthy.

The questioner : Al-Dhahabi, O Shaykh...

The Shaykh : How?

The questioner : Al-Dhahabi, O Shaykh, says: ...

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh: Go ahead.

The questioner : Excuse me... Ibn Hajar after *Al-Tahdhib*, and I compared *Al-Tahdhib*...; no one authenticated them, or only Ibn Hibban authenticated them, and a group of trustworthy narrators narrated from him. So I found in some biographies that he is acceptable, and in a few that he is trustworthy, and in many that he is acceptable.

The Shaykh: All right.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : He, show us what you found?

The questioner : So we say: The question is: Is it a principle from Ibn Hajar?

The Shaykh : What is the principle?

The questioner : What you mentioned from...

The Shaykh : No, it is not a rule; he is inconsistent in this regard. Therefore, we criticize him in many of the narrations he graded as *maqbul* (acceptable), because he contradicts what he said about others of the same type, grading them as *sidduq* (truthful) or *thiqah* (trustworthy). This is because no difference appears between the one he called *maqbul* and the one he called *sidduq*.

The questioner : But can we say that Ibn Hajar’s authentication of those narrators, or his ruling that they are truthful, stems from this? Because I sometimes observe...

The Shaykh : Stems from what?

The questioner : It stems from the fact that a group of trustworthy narrators narrated from him, so he ruled on them based on this criterion.

The Shaykh : And why did he not rule on the *maqbul* narrator with the same ruling?

The questioner : I say that if the number of entries there is greater than the number of those he called *maqbul*.

The Shaykh : We say that regarding the one in whom the single term has been verified; meaning, if five trustworthy narrators narrated from a narrator whom no one authenticated, and the Hafiz said of him: *sidduq* or *thiqah*, while another narrator from whom five trustworthy narrators narrated was called *maqbul* by him, what is the reason? There is no answer, except that this is his opinion and this is his *ijtihad* (independent legal reasoning). Therefore, it becomes difficult for some of the young students today when they see that I have graded a hadith as *hasan* (good) or *sahih* (authentic) in which there is a man about whom Hafiz Ibn Hajar said: *maqbul*. How did you grade it as *hasan* or *sahih*? My answer would be as follows: My brother, this book was authored by Hafiz Ibn Hajar, may Allah reward him with good and benefit many through his book, and I am the first among them. However, it is not revelation from the sky, and we are not obligated to adhere to everything he established. As for the beginners, they must, without fail, adhere to the opinion of this scholar due to his knowledge. But if two statements contradict each other, such as the statement of Hafiz al-Dhahabi, for example, contradicting the statement of Ibn Hajar, then in that case, we must certainly review the knowledge involved. I am not, nor is anyone else like me or with knowledge above mine, obligated to imitate Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani exactly, step by step. Rather, we generally follow him, and sometimes we differ from him, taking into account the principles of *usul al-fiqh* (the principles of jurisprudence) of which they explicitly stated many, applied some, and did not clarify others. This is of that nature.