How do we confront someone we are debating who, when we cite your views on authentication and weakening, says: "Ibn Hajar said so-and-so, and Ibn Kathir said so-and-so"?!
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The questioner : All right; our Shaykh, meaning, given that you are a hadith scholar and Allah has blessed you with what He has blessed you with, how do you respond to the one who says: When we confront your statement with the statements of some of the earlier imams and memorizers, meaning, he tells you: "My brother, Ibn Hajar, Ibn Kathir, so-and-so," regarding the weakening and authenticating? ...
The Shaykh : I say: Knowledge is not confined to one era over another, nor to one group over another, nor to one individual over another. That is the first point.
The second point: It is not necessary that a person like me who disagrees with someone who preceded him and came before him is more knowledgeable than that predecessor. However, reality bears witness to the wisdom of the famous saying: "How much the first left for the last!" If we stopped at such a saying, there would be no room for the continuation of knowledge. For example, what is said regarding me and al-Iskandari is said similarly regarding al-Iskandari and al-Dhahabi, and similarly regarding al-Dhahabi and al-Bukhari, and so on, with examples multiplying by the dozens, indeed by the hundreds. Would it be said, "Why did al-Dhahabi disagree with so-and-so?" No, this is not said.
The meaning of my statement and answer, in brief, is that this is the speech of an ignorant person who has no knowledge. Otherwise, scientific research would have ceased after the Companions. What would the Companion say? That the matter is finished? What would the first imam in hadith, al-Bukhari, say? That there is nothing left to say? Yet reality is not like that, and all Muslims acknowledge the wisdom mentioned earlier: "How much the first left for the last!" Then, if this personThe questioner : is among the people of knowledge and students of knowledge, we say: Look at the argument, look at the evidence. For example, Al-Albani might weaken something that al-Iskandari authenticated or graded as good, but it is better to say: "So-and-so, and al-Iskandari himself says: So-and-so is weak. Let him give us the answer: How do we reconcile al-Iskandari's grading of it as good with his weakening of this narrator in another book?" If he is not a scholar, he should not cite evidence...
The Shaykh : I say: Knowledge is not confined to one era over another, nor to one group over another, nor to one individual over another. That is the first point.
The second point: It is not necessary that a person like me who disagrees with someone who preceded him and came before him is more knowledgeable than that predecessor. However, reality bears witness to the wisdom of the famous saying: "How much the first left for the last!" If we stopped at such a saying, there would be no room for the continuation of knowledge. For example, what is said regarding me and al-Iskandari is said similarly regarding al-Iskandari and al-Dhahabi, and similarly regarding al-Dhahabi and al-Bukhari, and so on, with examples multiplying by the dozens, indeed by the hundreds. Would it be said, "Why did al-Dhahabi disagree with so-and-so?" No, this is not said.
The meaning of my statement and answer, in brief, is that this is the speech of an ignorant person who has no knowledge. Otherwise, scientific research would have ceased after the Companions. What would the Companion say? That the matter is finished? What would the first imam in hadith, al-Bukhari, say? That there is nothing left to say? Yet reality is not like that, and all Muslims acknowledge the wisdom mentioned earlier: "How much the first left for the last!" Then, if this personThe questioner : is among the people of knowledge and students of knowledge, we say: Look at the argument, look at the evidence. For example, Al-Albani might weaken something that al-Iskandari authenticated or graded as good, but it is better to say: "So-and-so, and al-Iskandari himself says: So-and-so is weak. Let him give us the answer: How do we reconcile al-Iskandari's grading of it as good with his weakening of this narrator in another book?" If he is not a scholar, he should not cite evidence...
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.