The abrogation of the Sunnah by the Qur'an, and the distinction between mutawatir and ahad hadith.

The Shaykh : ... the status of opinion (ra'y) in relation to it; that is, one only resorts to opinion when no clarification is found in the Sunnah. Likewise, one only resorts to the Sunnah when the clarification is not found in the Qur'an?
Answer: It is necessary to look at the Book and the Sunnah together at the same time; this is for known reasons in the science of usul al-fiqh (the principles of jurisprudence). For example, they state that the Sunnah specifies the Qur'an, the Sunnah specifies the generality of the Qur'an, and the Sunnah restricts the absolute of the Qur'an. Suppose a questioner asked Mu'adh: What is the ruling on the dead of the sea? Where would he look first, according to the system mentioned in his hadith? In the Qur'an. And he would read in the Qur'an: ; so what would the answer be? Forbidden, not permissible; because it is dead, the fish is dead. He was asked about dead locusts?! He would also forbid it; because the Qur'an is clear on this. Do you think if he did this, would he be correct? The answer: No, why? Because he looked at the Qur'an alone, he did not look at the Sunnah which specified the general text.
The word "dead" (maytah) here, with the "al" (the), indicates comprehensiveness and inclusion; meaning every dead thing. So the correct approach is not to look at the text of the Qur'an, even if it is explicit; due to the possibility that if it is general, it may be specified, and if it is absolute, it may be restricted, and if it is specific, it may be abrogated. There is no difference between abrogating a part and the whole. I want [to say] that when there is a general text in the Qur'an like this text before us: meaning: every dead thing. Then the hadith came, which is His saying: , this hadith specified the general Qur'anic text. And what does "specified" mean? It means that if we suppose there are many parts, say a hundred; then this hadith took one from the hundred, or two, the fish and the locusts. This is abrogation; and therefore the Salaf call the specifying text an abrogator (nasikh), and the specified text in the Qur'an an abrogated (mansukh); because it has this meaning, but it is not what? Absolute, as per the terminology of the later scholars; because they say in the discussion of the abrogating and the abrogated: it is the text that is acted upon until a time, then a text comes that indicates that it was lifted entirely. So if it is agreed upon by them that a part of the Qur'anic text can be abrogated, and it is Qur'an, which is undoubtedly stronger than the abrogator, which is a hadith; then what obstacle prevents the abrogation of the entire Qur'anic text by a text from the hadith, and the cause is the same?! And we can say: the cause is two parts here: positive and negative. The positive cause is that we were commanded to take the Sunnah along with the Qur'an; so it controls the Qur'an by abrogation, as established by agreement in the abrogation of a part. And the negative is that it is not permissible for us to neglect the Sunnah, neither if the abrogator is abrogating by a specific text in the Noble Qur'an, nor if it is abrogating a part by a general text.
I give you an example of a hadith with a verse: , the hadith: , so His saying - Blessed and Exalted is He - : was abrogated, by what? By His saying - peace and blessings be upon him - : . Some scholars say: the abrogation of the verse by this hadith is only valid; because it is a mutawatir hadith. I say: suppose that is the case, and it pleases me that it is so; but when did this hadith become mutawatir? When, for example, a man from the Companions heard it; did the mutawatir status begin from the moment one, two, ten, or a hundred Companions heard it? Did the description of this hadith as mutawatir begin from the moment the Messenger - peace and blessings be upon him - spoke it? Obviously: No; why? Because mutawatir has to do with transmission, and it had not yet become a transmission. Okay, let's take another step; did the mutawatir status begin from the moment one of the Companions transmitted this hadith to a Tabi'i (successor)? And this Tabi'i, by nature, did not meet the Messenger, and thus did not hear the hadith from the Messenger; so he only heard it through this Companion. So when the Companion transmitted a hadith to a Tabi'i; now the transmission began, without doubt. Okay, did the mutawatir status begin? The mutawatir status did not begin, from one person to another. It is as they say in our region in Syria: "without a long journey"; we do not want to expand too much. When, then, does the mutawatir status begin? The mutawatir status begins from the generation of the Tabi'in, the third century, and this is very little. And the later the century, the later the era, the more the mutawatir status appears, and its explanation is as follows:
If a Tabi'i met a Companion, and heard from him this hadith - for example - : , then he met a second Companion: he says: I heard the Messenger of Allah - peace and blessings be upon him - say, and he mentioned the hadith, and so on, he met a third, fourth, and fifth, and we say ten. This hadith became mutawatir with whom? With this Tabi'i; because he is the one who met the number of mutawatir. Clear? Okay, do you think how many hadiths were there in which it was easy for a Tabi'i to meet a large number of Companions such that this hadith became mutawatir with him? Very few; why? Because after the stabilization of the science of hadith and the ijtihad (independent legal reasoning) of the great scholars of hadith in the journey in the path of seeking hadith, this path that helped them to collect the routes of hadith from different Islamic lands where the Companions and those after them spread, with this, that is, after it became available for these imams to collect the hadiths in the bellies of books, you find in the science of terminology they differ; is there a mutawatir hadith or not? This is after what? The huge efforts of collecting the routes of hadith.
Finally: the correct opinion comes that there are mutawatir hadiths, but they are few. And of the most famous of these hadiths is: . But we return to what we said earlier that this Tabi'i who heard from five Companions, the hadith became mutawatir with him, but the other Tabi'i who did not hear it except from one Companion, it is not mutawatir with him. Do you think the first one must take it and abrogate the Qur'an, and the other one is not allowed to take it until it abrogates the Qur'an? This difference in the religion of Islam due to the proportion of the people from whom the hadith was received, few or many, is not equal.
From here, in my belief, ... the hadith of Mu'adh: By what do you judge? He said: By the Qur'an, and so on. And from here it becomes clear that it is one of the foreign innovations in Islam that resembles philosophy, it is the division of hadiths into mutawatir and ahad with adherence to the fruit of this division. Otherwise, in terms of reality, it exists, mutawatir and ahad, but the fruit, if it is mutawatir, it is permissible to take it, indeed it is obligatory to take it in creed, and it is permissible to abrogate the Qur'an with it, whereas ahad, it is not permissible to take it in creed, nor to abrogate the Qur'an with it. This different fruit is undoubtedly foreign to Islam, and the Companions did not know it.
And perhaps you know that among the Islamic parties today is the Tahrir Party, which differs from the Muslim Brotherhood in some aspects, and I clarify that it adopts scientific ideas, while the Muslim Brotherhood, it is known, is a mix of ideas, however diverse they may be. As for the Tahrir Party, it unifies the group on certain ideas, and whoever refuses to walk with them, even in one of them, they do not accept his affiliation with it. One of the ideas of the Tahrir Party was: it is not permissible to take ahad hadith in creed.
And upon you be peace, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. Welcome.
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We were discussing the hadith of mass transmission (mutawatir) and the hadith of a limited chain (ahad), and our discussion reached the point that while this classification is a reality, there are legal discrepancies between them. These discrepancies are innovations that have crept into the Islamic Shari'ah. The discussion centered on the claim that it is not permissible to abrogate the Qur'an with a hadith of a limited chain. We mentioned that the Sunnah commanded holding fast to the Book and the Sunnah together, and not separating between them, as stated by the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in the famous hadith: . Therefore, separating between them, like that separation, contradicts this hadith. Likewise, separating between a hadith of a limited chain and a hadith of mass transmission on the grounds that one does not permit deriving creed from it, while the other requires deriving creed from it, is also an innovation that has crept into Islam.
We reached a certain point in this discussion, and we came to remind you that the Islamic Tahrir Party, which is well-known today, adopted this innovated opinion in Islam, which is that a hadith of a limited chain does not permit deriving creed from it. Consequently, in reality, you find that they do not adopt any creed derived from the Sunnah. This is because the Sunnah is specific to them, and since they have not engaged in studying or narrating it, they do not find in it anything that is mass-transmitted and contains a creed for them to adopt. Take, for example, and this is what they explicitly state, the punishment of the grave. They do not have a creed that they are obligated to adopt stating that there is a punishment in the grave called the punishment of the grave, despite the fact that there are many hadiths mentioning the punishment of the grave, some of which include our command to seek refuge from the punishment of the grave in prayer: . Nevertheless, they do not accept this creed. Why? Because it is a hadith of a limited chain.
I had many discussions with them over the past twenty years or so, in which we told them what we mentioned earlier. However, we were compelled to mention something additional. We said to them: My brother, a hadith of mass transmission can only be verified or known by individuals in every era of the Islamic world, not by the general public, but by the elite, and not by the general elite, but by the elite of the elite, who are the scholars of hadith. So where are these people?
Then, if a man knowledgeable in hadith is found in a town or village, and our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) has granted him breadth in knowledge, and it is established with him that a certain hadith is a hadith of mass transmission, and you, so-and-so, come and hear from him this testimony that such-and-such a hadith is a hadith of mass transmission; does it become mass-transmitted for you? The answer is no. Because, as we discussed regarding the Tabi'i hearing from a Companion, then a second, third, and fourth Companion, and so on, this hadith became mass-transmitted for him, but it did not become mass-transmitted for others. Therefore, those who stipulated mass transmission in a hadith required the continuity of mass transmission in every layer. So I said to them, for example: The hadith of the punishment of the grave is mass-transmitted for me, but if you hear this statement from me, does it become mass-transmitted for you? The answer is obviously, of course, no. Why? Because a hadith of mass transmission conveys certainty and absolute conviction. And indeed, this hadith conveyed certainty to me. But I am an individual; when I say to you, "O Zayd, this is a hadith of mass transmission," does this certainty transfer from me to you? No, what transfers to you is only my statement that this is a hadith of mass transmission, while the certainty and absolute conviction are impossible to transfer. Why? Because they themselves say that if a hadith is narrated by Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the best of all the Companions, and it comes through a hundred chains, it does not convey absolute conviction and certainty. This is not an accusation against Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, but rather because he is a human being and may have made a mistake. This is a statement that aligns with the scholars. However, the scholars who entered into this philosophy between mass transmission and limited chains say: The principle regarding trustworthiness is that he preserves [the information], so we accept his statement and narration until his error in it becomes apparent to us. Therefore, the possibility that he may have made a mistake does not convey certainty. This is generally accepted.
So now, when I say, "This hadith is mass-transmitted for me," the one who hears this statement from me does not have it as mass-transmitted, because my statement did not convey certainty to him. Because what is said about me is still said about Abu Bakr, and more than what is said about Abu Bakr, regarding the possibility of what? Error, first, and the possibility—may Allah forbid—that I am a lying, perjured man with an agenda in claiming mass transmission for a certain hadith. So by what means, O Islamic Tahrir Party, who gather thousands, if not millions, in the Islamic world, by what means do you obtain creed, as long as you have stipulated mass transmission for it? After the Qur'an, there is absolutely no way to do so. And the reality is that they do not have any creeds at all. Therefore, one of the dangers of this separation is that Muslims remain without giving weight to the Sunnah, no matter how strong it is, as long as it is below the level of mass transmission. And thus, we find a great difference between what the Khalaf (later generations) are upon and what the Salaf (earliest generations) were upon. The Salaf do not separate between Allah and His Messenger, they do not separate between the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), neither in creeds nor in rulings, neither in theoretical issues nor in practical issues, as expressed by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah and his student Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah.
And I used to say to them: My friends, why this separation? They say: My brother, the issue is creed, and creed must be built upon certainty. We said: No problem, if it is possible, then so be it. But if a correct report comes to us containing creed, why do we not accept this report and adopt a creed from it, just as we adopt a legal ruling from any correct report? You say: We must take creed from a report of mass transmission, because it is not valid to build creed on what conveys preponderant opinion. I said to them: Then it is not permissible for you to adopt a legal ruling that does not contain creed in the technical sense. They said: Why? I said: Because it is impossible to conceive of a practical legal ruling that does not contain within it creed; it is never separated from it. Because if I say, for example: "It is forbidden for men to wear gold rings," that is a legal ruling, but this means that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has ruled that this wearing of gold rings is forbidden for men. So your statement: "He ruled"; is this not creed? And so you extend this to all legal rulings.
And more than that; if a Muslim worships Allah with any act of worship, but deep in his heart he did not intend or believe in that legal ruling, does that benefit him in any way? Obviously, the answer is no. So creed accompanies the ruling before the action, and then the action follows. And so many, many things, among the most brilliant of which we said to them: There are hadiths that combine creed and legal ruling, but they are of a limited chain. And you will be in a state of confusion, or your position regarding this type of hadiths will be confused. If you leave the hadith because it contains creed, you leave acting upon it, and it contains a ruling. And if you accept it because it contains a ruling, you accept it, and it contains creed, which you do not see. An example is the hadith of seeking refuge; I mentioned the supplication in it, but its text is: and so on. Here, the Messenger commands us to seek refuge with Allah from four things in the final tashahhud. If you accept this command, is it conceivable that you seek refuge from the punishment of the grave while you do not believe in it? It is not conceivable. If you seek refuge in implementation of this command, then you have adopted the creed from a hadith of a limited chain. And if you leave the hadith because it contains creed, you leave your statement that legal rulings are established by a hadith of a limited chain.
The cause of all this is deviation from the path of the righteous Salaf, and we ask Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to keep us firm upon this straight path.
Other than that?