What is the ruling on the hadith of Sahl ibn Sa'd in which he said: (I never saw the Messenger of Allah raising his hands in supplication from the pulpit or elsewhere, but I saw him saying it like this, and Abu Sa'id said he followed the index finger of his hand, bending it)

The Shaykh : It does not mean prohibition; it means its absence, its non-use, and the like. As for the word "prohibition," in any case, but his statement: is correct, except that they are from the truth, so for example, he wants it to be said, but his statement "everything that is play" is correct except the word "false," so this is how he sees it.

The questioner : If it is not established, he is hoping, meaning he should review it and verify that if it is authentic, he can build his premise upon it.

The Shaykh : No, it is authentic. Did you see it in the first volume?

The questioner : It is in the first volume, O Shaykh. It is strengthened by corroborating narrations. None of the corroborating narrations contain "false," "forgetfulness," or "play."
The student : It is idle talk.

The questioner : It is idle talk.
The student : Here it is idle talk, O Shaykh. The hadith is idle talk, three hundred and fifteen.

The Shaykh : Well, if that is the case, in my opinion, this chain of narration... the word "false" is present.
A hadith with a chain of narration that has weakness due to 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu'awiya, Abu al-Huwayth, from Sahl ibn Sa'd, who said: The point is that I currently have Shaykh Shu'ayb's commentary on al-Ihsan and al-Darani's commentary on al-Mawarid, do you know it? It is eight volumes. Al-Darani says: "Its chain of narration is good." Shu'ayb says: "The hadith is authentic with its corroborating narrations." And these corroborating narrations were mentioned by al-Darani in his tracing of this hadith in Musnad Abu Ya'la. The point is, look at the superficiality of thinking or the superficiality of knowledge. Even though this man, for at least what is said about him, Shu'ayb did not say "its chain of narration is good" as al-Darani said "its chain of narration is good." Al-Darani did not say "its chain of narration is authentic." Why? Because this man has been criticized, and he is from Madinah, and Imam Malik, who is the most knowledgeable of people about the conditions of the narrators of Madinah, at least says "he is not trustworthy." So al-Darani ignored this statement. Why? Because Ibn Hibban mentioned him among the trustworthy, and because Ibn Ma'in graded him as trustworthy. But regarding Ibn Ma'in, there are two reports from him: once he said "trustworthy" and once he said "he is not to be relied upon for evidence." Then the rest of the critics of this man are unanimous in weakening him. Our friend al-Darani ignored all these facts and what did he say? "Its chain of narration is good." Then on top of that, he began to present corroborating narrations for it, and these are the corroborating narrations that are in Shu'ayb's mind until he said "the hadith is authentic with its corroborating narrations," and he did not mention a single corroborating narration. The point about these corroborating narrations is that first, they are insufficient corroborations, and second, there remains in this hadith a very deniable matter where he said "I never saw the Messenger of Allah raising his hands in supplication from the pulpit or elsewhere." What does this mean? It denies all the hadiths reported regarding raising the hands. And in my mind, this Hafiz Ibn Nasir al-Din wrote a treatise collecting the hadiths that include raising the hands, including the one you mentioned: that Allah loves, and so on. A good copy in his handwriting, written in the year 817 AH, by the Hafiz Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi. He mentioned in it, he collected in it the hadiths that include raising the hands, and they are numerous. The point here is that he says: If he had said "from the pulpit," it would have been somewhat mitigated, but even then it is an error, because the hadith of Anas is explicit that he raised them, but in other than that, there are many hadiths. So this hadith can be called a deniable hadith, why? Because this narrator, 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu'awiya, has what we mentioned in him. Then he denied things that can be said to be at least widely reported narrations, if not mass-transmitted, which are that the Messenger used to raise his hands in supplication. Then he says: Here remains the complete superficiality in thinking and in citing evidence. He bends it. This same narrator has three narrations from him: once he bends it, once he moves it instead of bending it, once neither this nor that. A man like this, first, his hadith is graded as good, and then it is said that his hadith has corroborating narrations, and the corroborating narrations are based on refuting this hadith. So my intention was a reference from my references in which I traced more than one hadith regarding raising the hands to refer to it, or otherwise, I am satisfied now with the same, what is it called, al-Ihsan, in which this hadith that we asked about earlier is there, that it is a hadith that says: This is with the same, what is it? Al-Ihsan, with the same al-Ihsan, in this weak hadith that says he did not see, here remains, from the perspective of precision in transmission, well, it can be said that this Companion did not see the Messenger, but we say we are forced to say that the affirming is preferred over the denying when the narrators from this Companion do not have a defect. Otherwise, because we are between placing a defect in the Companion, and this is not a strong defect because he is from those who preserve evidence, but in any case, it can be said that this Companion did not preserve, what did he not preserve? It is not a matter that occurred once in the life of the Messenger, but rather many times and many times. There is some criticism of this Companion. So if the matter revolves between criticizing the preservation of the Companion or criticizing the narrators below him, no doubt any rational person judges that the criticism of those below him is more appropriate than the criticism of the Companion himself. But if we do not find a defect in any of the narrators, as if they are all trustworthy preservers, we say, by Allah, But here we have this man about whom the Imam of the City of Migration said: "He is not trustworthy." We will say "this chain of narration is good" and we will say "authentic for other reasons," and what is "authentic for other reasons" when it is transmitted by authentic hadiths? These authentic hadiths, I wanted to point to them, or otherwise, it is sufficient for me initially to refer to what Ibn Hibban himself narrated in his Sahih. This was my intention.

The questioner : So that it is also a criticism in his mind, along with the corroborating narrations, that he did not raise his hands in supplication on the pulpit, but rather he pointed with his finger.

The Shaykh : Yes, what?

The questioner : The one with Ibn Khuzaymah.

The Shaykh: Yes

The questioner : It can also be a criticism in his mind that this corroborating narration

The Shaykh : is not brought by him.

The questioner : It is brought by him.

The Shaykh : Or it is not brought by him. This is here in Musnad Abu Ya'la, as is corroborated by the hadith of 'Amirah ibn ... in Ahmad and Muslim in the Friday prayer... in the prayer and the sermon, and so on. Yes, glory be to Allah.