What is your opinion of al-Suyuti's "al-Jami'" and his collection of hadiths?
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The questioner : What is your opinion, O Shaykh, of the introduction to al-Suyuti's "al-Jami'"?
The Shaykh : What is my opinion of what?
The questioner : ... al-Suyuti's "al-Jami'"?
The Shaykh : ... Have you not read the introduction to "Sahih al-Jami'" and "Da'if al-Jami'"?
The questioner : I have not read it, and I know ... .
The Shaykh : Al-Suyuti, in "al-Jami' al-Saghir," and I say this frankly: al-Hattab collected it! He collects authentic, good, weak, and fabricated hadiths. Even though he stated in the introduction that he protected it from what is unique to him ... , had he been able to fulfill this condition, it would have been a very useful book, unique in its field. But unfortunately, he was not able to do so. In his book "al-La'ali al-Masnu'ah fi al-Ahadith al-Mawdu'ah," he agrees with Ibn al-Jawzi on his ruling of fabrication regarding some hadiths, which he had narrated or mentioned in "al-Jami' al-Saghir." In fact, he appended a supplement to Ibn al-Jawzi's book "al-Mawdu'at," naming it "Dhail al-Ahadith al-Mawdu'ah," which is printed in India. In it, he cites hadiths and rules them to be fabricated, not following others, but through his own independent reasoning; yet he included them in "al-Jami' al-Saghir," and so on. Then he ... regarding authenticity, goodness, and weakness, there is no doubt in them for two reasons: one finds a fundamental divergence between his symbols for authenticity and his symbols for tracing sources. For example, in the tracing, he says: "Narrated by so-and-so, authentic." We return to so-and-so—meaning, for example, the four books—and find it narrated through Ibn Lahi'ah, or through, for example, another man like 'Ali ibn Zayd ibn Jad'an, and find it weak. Sometimes he mentions the hadith and marks it as being in "the two Sahihs"; that is, with the letter ... , then you find next to it the letter Dhad; that is, weak. This is impossible, like combining two opposites.
The Shaykh : What is my opinion of what?
The questioner : ... al-Suyuti's "al-Jami'"?
The Shaykh : ... Have you not read the introduction to "Sahih al-Jami'" and "Da'if al-Jami'"?
The questioner : I have not read it, and I know ... .
The Shaykh : Al-Suyuti, in "al-Jami' al-Saghir," and I say this frankly: al-Hattab collected it! He collects authentic, good, weak, and fabricated hadiths. Even though he stated in the introduction that he protected it from what is unique to him ... , had he been able to fulfill this condition, it would have been a very useful book, unique in its field. But unfortunately, he was not able to do so. In his book "al-La'ali al-Masnu'ah fi al-Ahadith al-Mawdu'ah," he agrees with Ibn al-Jawzi on his ruling of fabrication regarding some hadiths, which he had narrated or mentioned in "al-Jami' al-Saghir." In fact, he appended a supplement to Ibn al-Jawzi's book "al-Mawdu'at," naming it "Dhail al-Ahadith al-Mawdu'ah," which is printed in India. In it, he cites hadiths and rules them to be fabricated, not following others, but through his own independent reasoning; yet he included them in "al-Jami' al-Saghir," and so on. Then he ... regarding authenticity, goodness, and weakness, there is no doubt in them for two reasons: one finds a fundamental divergence between his symbols for authenticity and his symbols for tracing sources. For example, in the tracing, he says: "Narrated by so-and-so, authentic." We return to so-and-so—meaning, for example, the four books—and find it narrated through Ibn Lahi'ah, or through, for example, another man like 'Ali ibn Zayd ibn Jad'an, and find it weak. Sometimes he mentions the hadith and marks it as being in "the two Sahihs"; that is, with the letter ... , then you find next to it the letter Dhad; that is, weak. This is impossible, like combining two opposites.
Source
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