In recent times, among beginner students of knowledge, it has become common to distinguish between scholars by saying: this one is a hadith scholar and this one is a jurist.

The questioner : He said: In recent times, among beginner students of knowledge, it has become common to distinguish between scholars by saying: this one is a hadith scholar and this one is a jurist. Is there a difference between them? And if there is a difference, which is better?

The Shaykh : There is no doubt that each of the scholars has dealt with the Shari'ah from a certain angle: this one is a hadith scholar, this one is a jurist, this one is a scholar of creed, this one is a scholar of grammar, and this one is a scholar of rhetoric. There is no doubt about this, and the best of people is the one who combines hadith and fiqh. But let it be known that among hadith scholars, there are some who do not have fiqh, as evidenced by his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): Who is the transmitter? The one who conveys the hadith, yes. The one who is transmitted to: is the one who took the hadith from the one who narrated it, but he understood it in the religion of Allah. So not every hadith scholar is a jurist, and not every jurist is a hadith scholar. For example, among the jurists, there are some who focus on the books of scholars, verifying and scrutinizing them, but they are weak in hadith. And there are others who are the opposite: they have knowledge of hadith, but they do not understand it; their fiqh of hadith is little. You will find them believing that something is general when it is not general, or specific when it is not specific, and so on. But the problem now is not this. The problem is classifying people, meaning: this is a hadith scholar, do not ask him about a fiqh issue; this is a jurist, do not ask him about a hadith issue. This is the problem. It is obligatory for us to believe in the good and the blessing in our scholars, and by blessing I mean the blessing of knowledge, and not to be disdainful of the knowledge they possess. Because if you are disdainful of the knowledge of the scholars, from whom will you take the Shari'ah? From whom? From the ignorant? This is a great error. Yes.