(Blessed, blessed, and blessed is the one who believes in me and has not seen me), is it authentic?

The questioner: His EminenceThe Shaykh : , Hadith: , is it authentic? We ask for clarification, and may Allah reward you with good?

The Shaykh : It is authentic with the wording: "If , but as for 'I did not see me,' it is authentic. It is not permissible to attribute it to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). It is an authentic hadith without doubt, and it contains a reminder of what we mentioned earlier: that those who saw him are blessed, but those who came after him (peace be upon him) and did not see him are also blessed. Why is that? These are two hadiths that we should mention, along with clarifying which of them is authentic. The first is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, in a story that is also long, and I am compelled to abbreviate it and narrate only what relates to this question, he said (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) to his companions one day: . So the Messenger entered his chamber, and the point here is that the people—meaning his companions—began to speculate about who these blessed ones with white faces were, who would enter Paradise without reckoning or punishment. Some said: Who could these be but we, the Muhajireen, who migrated for the sake of Allah and left their homeland for the Messenger (peace be upon him)? Some said: No, they are the Ansar, who supported the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in a time of hardship. Some said—and this is the point: No, neither you nor you; rather, these are your children who will come after you and believe in your Prophet, though they did not see him; so blessed are they, blessed are they. This is the first hadith.
The second hadith, and this is in "Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim," is the second of the hadiths mentioned in the books of terminology in the chapter of "Wujadah." In the science of terminology, there is a type of narration called "Wujadah"; that is, the narrator says, "I found in so-and-so's book: So-and-so narrated to me," and so on. He did not hear the hadith from the author of the book, but rather read the hadith in that book. This is called narration by "Wujadah." They asked the scholars of hadith: Is this narration valid? The opinion that settled among them is that it is valid. We now, and those before us, narrate the hadiths of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) by "Wujadah"; because I say, "Al-Bukhari and Muslim narrated it." What connected Al-Bukhari and Muslim to me, when there is more than a thousand years between us and them? I read in their book, and this is "Wujadah." They argued for this with sound reasoning, and this is what I mentioned to you earlier. Some of them argued with a hadith, which is the point, but it contains weakness, and it is: . They said: We are. He said: ; this is "Wujadah"; this "Wujadah" means that these people believed in the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), so their faith was in the unseen, and not by sight as his companions saw him and heard from him directly. So the Messenger (peace be upon him) says in this hadith, if it is authentic, there is no wonder that you believe in me while you hear my words and see my miracles, and so on. But my wonder is for those who believe in what they find in paper and in the pages. This does not mean that they, meaning those who believed after the Companions until the end of time, are more sincere than the Companions of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him); no, because you have heard of the hadith of the generations, and there is no need to repeat it.
And the intended meaning of this hadith is to affirm that those who believed in him (peace be upon him) and did not see him are blessed, and it is a tree in Paradise as it came in the authentic hadith: . First, this word appeared in the Noble Qur'an: . Its interpretation came in his saying (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him): . So the Messenger (peace be upon him) says: "Taba" is for these believers who believed in him (peace and blessings be upon him) and did not see him. And He (Blessed and Exalted is He) said in the beginning of Surat al-Baqarah: . Who are they? . So the unseen in the language of the Arabs is everything that is hidden from your thought and your mind, and you must believe in it. And there is no doubt that whoever believes in the entire unseen, and foremost among that is the one who brought the unseen from the Lord of the Worlds, and that is his noble Messenger; there is no doubt that this faith is one with which his owner is congratulated, and it is said of him by his Prophet: Blessed is he, blessed is he.
And in conclusion, on the occasion of "Taba," it is necessary to remind: Does this... or this good news that came in this hadith include every believer in every era and in every place, or does this "Taba" only pertain to a group of people in every time and place? The answer: Yes, it pertains to a group of people about whom the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . It came in some authentic narrations: It was said: O Messenger of Allah, who are the strangers? His answer was in two ways, on the occasion of... calling all people to it; indeed, he heard a responder.