How the Sunnah is purged of weak hadiths, and the ongoing disagreement among hadith scholars, both past and present, regarding authentication, grading as good, and declaring weak.

The questioner : In the same chapter, Professor, how is the purification done? What is considered a hadith by some hadith scholars is considered a good hadith by others, and what is considered bad by some is considered good or weak by others?

The Shaykh : This, without offense, is a habit we know from Akhzam. By purification, we mean what is possible of it. The weak and fabricated hadiths that are widespread in the books we mentioned—books of tafsir, hadith, conduct, and morals, and the like—are too numerous to count in the hundreds, rather in the thousands. I am a single person, and the number of weak and fabricated hadiths I have reached so far is close to over six thousand weak hadiths, I alone. So what do you imagine if there were an abundance and multitude of specialized scholars in the Islamic world? They would dig up such hadiths from the depths of the books in many and very numerous forms. So why do we come to some hadiths in which some hadith scholars differ, as some say: that there are fiqh rulings in which some scholars also differed? We say: there are issues that have been established by researchers in fiqh to be errors, contrary to the Book and the Sunnah, and they must be purged and removed from the path of the jurists. Likewise, there are hadiths whose weakness, and even fabrication, is agreed upon, and they must be removed from the depths of the books and from the minds of students of knowledge, as well as scholars. There will undoubtedly remain some fiqh issues and some hadiths that are a matter of disagreement. The fact that some of that remains is what leads to such a question, because we do not believe, contrary to what is spread by some with ill intent or the ignorant, that we want to unify all the madhahib and make the four madhahib one madhhab. I do not say: we are the most knowledgeable people. We are the most knowledgeable people that this is impossible. It is impossible to gather people on one madhhab. It is impossible to gather people on one thought. But it is not impossible to bring people closer together, especially the people of the Sunnah and the community. Bringing them closer is possible—and this is a reality and observed. Those who study the fiqh called today "comparative fiqh," even though this study in the universities is still superficial, because the doctor specialized in Shari'ah and fiqh presents the issue and the opinions that were said in it and the evidence of all of them, then leaves the students confused, not knowing what is the correct among these opinions because he presented their evidence. There may be a general verse and a detailed hadith, so he does not say this hadith specifies the verse. There may be a madhhab that argues with an authentic hadith and another with a weak hadith, so he does not pause to distinguish the authentic from the weak, and so on. He leaves what? The students confused. Therefore, I say: this comparative fiqh today is studied superficially. Those who study it completely, so that—as they say today also—they put the dots on the letters, they say: this is its evidence, and this is its evidence, and this is its evidence, and the stronger position is such and such, for such and such reasons. These people know that those who follow this fiqh methodology—and it is called comparative fiqh—bring Muslims closer together. And these are examples before us that exist today. Who among the students of knowledge has not heard of Imam al-Shawkani? Who among the students of knowledge has not heard of al-San'ani? Who among the people of knowledge has not heard of Salih al-Maqbali, the author of "The Towering Knowledge in Preferring the Truth over the Fathers and Shaykhs"? Who has not heard of these? No one. Their origin is Zaydi, Zaydis. They are not Hanafi, nor Shafi'i, nor Maliki, nor Hanbali. That is, in the expression of these four madhahib, those Zaydis are not from the people of the Sunnah and the community. But when they followed this path that we call all Muslims to follow so that they may come closer and love one another, and not distance themselves or hate one another, then what was realized in these imams we mentioned is realized in them, where they became with us, they became Sunni, they became refuting the Zaydis, because they contradict the Sunnah. So this methodology unifies and does not divide. As for each person remaining on his madhhab, that is what divides and does not unify.