What concerns al-Ghazali and his methodology, his authenticating of weak hadiths, and his weakening of authentic hadiths!

The questioner: What concerns al-Ghazali is that he began speaking about hadiths, and you know his review of some hadiths, even in "Sahih Muslim," and any hadith that contradicts his opinion, he places under your foot.

The Shaykh : Correct.

The questioner: He contradicted the hadith: .

The Shaykh: Allah is the Greatest!

The questioner: And this occurred in his discussion of a master's thesis... and he said this statement without...

The Shaykh : How did he say it?

The questioner: He said... in the hadith: , this is in "Sahih Muslim."

The Shaykh: Pardon me; it is not correct to say: that your fathers.

The questioner: This is the saying of the Messenger - peace and blessings be upon him - he said to the one who said in the matter... he said: The saying of the Messenger - peace and blessings be upon him - I do not say it about myself, but I say: The Messenger of Allah said.

The Shaykh: It is the wording of the Messenger - may Allah bless you - : .

The questioner: Here, perhaps I made a mistake in this, .

The Shaykh: No need for verification, no need for "perhaps" [everyone laughs].

The questioner: The important thing in this hadith is that he said, he said in this hadith: Put it under your foot.

The Shaykh : I seek refuge in Allah!

The questioner: This is available to us on a tape, this is one matter, the other matter - may Allah keep you safe - is the attacking of ahad hadiths, indeed the targeting of "Sahih al-Bukhari" and so on Muslim and "Sahih Muslim," then... he returns to argue with some hadiths, sometimes with hadiths that are either weak or fabricated, and we find those who drum for him, may Allah reward you with good, if you pointed out some of his errors?

The Shaykh: We have pointed this out in many gatherings in your country on this occasion, so there is no gathering where we do not speak, either initially... or in response to a question, and in the city of the Messenger - peace and blessings be upon him - we delivered a long speech about this al-Ghazali, so we addressed his denial of some authentic hadiths that he denied, I looked into some of the refutations that were written against him, but the time does not help me to conclude on them and what is in them, and from these hadiths that I found he denied is this hadith in "Sahih": , and I spoke about the jurisprudence of this hadith, and that it does not contradict His saying - Exalted is He - : , and that this al-Ghazali and others of the predecessors who say that the Arabs in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance were from the people of the period of respite, and this I refuted in that lecture, the lecture is very long, and it is all about what you asked me about now, but the truth is we agreed with some of our brothers to stay with you until ten thirty, and it was almost half over, but even so we extend the mentioned time a little so that we can be able to answer something of this question.
The man's stance towards the hadiths of the Messenger - peace be upon him - is contrary to what he hums about in this last book of his and in others of the criticism of the people of the Sunnah and the people of hadith specifically, old and new, that he claims that these people have no jurisprudence, and that jurisprudence was, he composed a treatise before, no Sunnah without jurisprudence, did you see this treatise is necessary, before this last book.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh: Huh?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh: Yes, so some of our brothers refuted him, and he is one of our in-laws there in the United Arab Emirates, but it was not facilitated for him to publish that article, the important thing from the misguidance of this man is that he has no jurisprudence, let alone the Sunnah, so he says: No Sunnah without jurisprudence, and this statement is the clear misguidance; why? Because the scholars of the Muslims do not differ that jurisprudence was established upon the Book and the Sunnah, as he said - peace and blessings be upon him - : , so the Sunnah exists and it is obligatory upon all Muslims to believe in it, no doubt that people differ in understanding it first, then in its good application second, but that it is said: "No Sunnah without jurisprudence"; he said - peace be upon him - : , and in a wording: .
The important thing is that the carrier of the Sunnah may be a jurist and may be not a jurist; so it exists and is established, how does he say: No Sunnah without jurisprudence?! But the opposite is the correct; no jurisprudence without Sunnah; because the jurisprudence that relies on the Sunnah is an opinion, and the opinion is rejected, so as al-Shafi'i - may Allah have mercy on him - said in "Al-Risalah" in the discussion of analogical reasoning: that the one who is not a scholar in the Sunnah, upon what does he analogize?! Upon the Book? The Book says: .
The point is that this man has no jurisprudence and no knowledge of the Sunnah, his jurisprudence is his intellect, and his Sunnah is his intellect - also - , so whatever pleased him from this and that is the Shari'ah, otherwise he rejected it, so he denied this messenger from it, this hadith: , but the truth is that he may be excused in his denial of this hadith, but he is not excused in other hadiths that he innovated their denial, and the one who denied the first hadith and I said: may be excused, and when I say may be excused, I claim that I am placing it in its place, may be excused; meaning: and may not be excused? Why do I say here may be excused? Because he was preceded by one who criticized the authenticity of this hadith from those who are considered among the preservers of hadith; namely al-Hafiz al-Suyuti, he has a treatise on the two noble parents in which he went to the weak hadith, indeed the fabricated one, as Ibn al-Jawzi did; where he included it in "Al-Maudu'at" that Allah - Mighty and Majestic - revived his two parents and they submitted, and likewise Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah ruled on its fabrication - also -.
So Glorified is Allah!! Al-Suyuti relied on saving the two parents from being judged with the Fire first upon this weak hadith, then he weakened the authentic hadith, what did he cling to in weakening it?! We ask Allah to protect us from desire! This hadith is in "Sahih Muslim" and in "Musnad Imam Ahmad" from the narration of Hammad ibn Salama from Thabit from Anas; that a man came to the Prophet - peace and blessings be upon him and his family - and said: O Messenger of Allah, where is my father? He said: . So the man returned, as if he returned naturally sad, bring the man, so he returned, and he said: .
Al-Suyuti excused this hadith with Hammad ibn Salama, and he knows two things that there is no way to deny them, and especially the second of them; he knows first that he is from the great imams of the Muslims, and especially those who defend the Sunnah, so they mentioned this in his biography unanimously, then he knows that he is trustworthy specifically in what he narrates from Thabit, but he took the words of those who hinted at him in his narration from other than Thabit, so he said: In his memory there is speech, so he dropped this hadith of his, and he sees with his own eyes that it is from his narration from Thabit, and there is no speech in the authenticity of his hadith from him; with the argument that the parents of the Messenger - peace and blessings be upon him - are from the people of the period of respite, and Allah - Exalted is He - says: ; so how can it be conceivable that the Prophet - peace and blessings be upon him - judges his two parents with the Fire while the call did not reach them; they are from the people of the period of respite?! I do not know if it is from personal conviction that he believes that the people of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance are from the people of the period of respite? And every Muslim - approximately - knows that Ibrahim and Isma'il - peace be upon them - are the ones who raised the foundations of the Ka'bah as is in the explicit Qur'an, then the Arabs were the only ones who performed Hajj and 'Umrah and called out and stood and stayed overnight until the end, how did he overlook this and say: that they - meaning: the people of the period of respite, meaning: the people of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance before the sending of the Messenger, peace be upon him - the call did not reach them?!
Add to this that there are many authentic hadiths indicating that the people of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance before the sending of the Messenger (peace be upon him) are not among the people of the period of ignorance (al-fatra). How many hadiths are there in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was asked, for example, about Hatim al-Tai and his generosity and spending; did that raise his status? He said: , and he said this applies to him and to other generous Arabs. Likewise, it came in "Sahih Muslim" that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was riding his mount when he mocked it, so he looked and saw two graves, and he asked when these two died? They said: in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance. He said: , so this is an explicit text that those who died in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance are being tortured; so how is it correct to say that those who were before the Messenger (peace be upon him) are among the people of the period of ignorance, and they have no evidence except the generality of His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He): ?! And there is no doubt that the sending (ba'th) here in the verse is not necessarily a direct sending to them of his message; it is sufficient that the call reaches them directly, even through the Messenger, as is our situation, we Muslims today. If the verse is interpreted to mean every group in every era, then that means we have also entered into the group of the period of ignorance; because no Messenger came to us directly. And accordingly, the verse that says: is interpreted to mean: directly; at that time, this does not contradict what we mentioned earlier that the intended meaning is the arrival of the message, not the Messenger himself, as I mentioned earlier regarding the Ummah of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him).
So the summary is: that the people of opinion rely on interpreting the verses according to their desires, and then their desires conflict with some of the hadiths, not the verses, so they claim that this hadith contradicts the Noble Qur'an. As for Al-Suyuti, he unfortunately paved the way for such a man to attack this hadith in terms of its chain of narration, and there is absolutely no flaw in it, especially since I have found some corroborating evidence for it; among which is that a man also asked the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) about his father? So he answered him with another answer, saying to him: ; so this is a general and comprehensive proof that those who were before the mission of the Messenger (peace be upon him) and to whom his call did not reach are polytheists. My speech there in Medina was about an hour or more, centered on this point.

The questioner : Between Maghrib and 'Isha'.

The Shaykh : Between Maghrib and 'Isha', meaning: about an hour.
Among the hadiths that he denies, as you know, is the hadith of Moses striking the Angel of Death, and that he gouged out his eye; he mocks and laughs; how is this hadith, and Moses hates death?! That is due to his ignorance of the Sunnah. It came in "Musnad Imam Ahmad" with a valid chain from Abu Hurayrah that those before you were visited by the Angel of Death in the form of a human, so he came to Moses and said to him: Obey your Lord. So what Moses did was slap him that slap, and he gouged out his human eye, not his angelic eye. If this man had first known the Sunnah, and then believed in it, he would not have found this hadith difficult at all, especially since at the end of the hadith, when the Angel of Death complained about Moses to his Lord, He said to him: I sent you to a servant of Mine who does not love death. He said: Go back to him and tell him: Place your hand on the skin of a bull; for you is a year of life for every hair. So he returned to him, and it was as if it was revealed to him, or he knew by one way or another—it does not concern us that this action was sent by Allah, and not an ordinary person wanting to mock him and say: Give me your soul. He said: So what... The end of what came is not correct to say that Moses (peace be upon him) hated death, and it is not correct to say consequently how can it be rationalized that he strikes an angel and gouges out his eye? Because he was in the form of a human. And so it is with all the hadiths that he denies or mocks; he is only ruling by his desire in that. And ... for people is the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic): , and His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): , to many other verses that obligate every Muslim to submit the leadership of his heart and mind to Allah and His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him); because as He said in the Qur'an: .
Therefore, from the day we commented on his book "Fiqh al-Sirah," and he placed that introduction, his bad smell began to appear when he announced his methodology that he might rule on an authentic hadith as not authentic, and on a weak hadith as authentic. And you know what he mentioned in this introduction, and I had met him more than once, especially when we were in the Supreme Council at the Islamic University in Medina. I said to him: O Shaykh, you rejected the hadith of Ibn 'Umar because you understood from it that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) raided Banu al-Mustaliq without the call reaching them; where did you get this from? Legal rulings are not taken from a single hadith. You know that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), when he wanted to go on a raid, would feint in another direction; do you want him to inform the people and let them know that we are coming to raid you?! Does this mean this is the justification and the warning?! Or is it enough that he warned them a month, two months, a year, two years before? The important thing is that the call reached them, so they disbelieved and denied... So what is the point, as if he raided them without warning? And in the authentic hadith from Ibn 'Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him), he said: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) did not raid a people, or the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) did not fight a people, until he conveyed the call to them ."
Likewise, he authenticated the hadith: , saying: This is correct in meaning; so we said to him: Glory be to Allah! Is every sentence or every wisdom that is correct in meaning necessarily correct in attribution to the Messenger (peace be upon him)?! Then his saying (peace be upon him): , is this poetry his saying or the saying of the poets?! means it is not from his speech, but it contains wisdom. So if a wrongdoer or a liar attributes some beautiful and good speech to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and we look at the meaning and find it sound; then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said it! This is the height of falsehood and deviation from such as his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): .
And perhaps we will suffice with this amount, and we ask forgiveness fromThe Shaykh : Fahd to allow us to leave.