How do we respond to someone who argues with us by saying, regarding your grading of hadiths as authentic or weak, "Ibn Hajar said this and Ibn Kathir said that"?
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The questioner : Well, Shaykh, since you are a hadith scholar and Allah has granted you what He has granted, how do you respond to the one who, when we confront your statement with the statements of some of the earlier imams and memorizers, says to you, "My brother, Ibn Hajar and Ibn Kathir said this regarding the grading of authenticity and weakness"?
The Shaykh : I say that 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 is that it is not necessary that a person like me who disagrees with someone who came before him and preceded 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 about me and al-'Asqalani is said similarly about al-'Asqalani and al-Dhahabi, and what is said about al-Dhahabi is said similarly about al-Bukhari. And so the examples multiply by the dozens, indeed by the hundreds. Is it said, "Why did al-Dhahabi disagree with so-and-so?" No, that is not said. The meaning of my words and my 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 did the first imam in hadith, al-Bukhari, say? There would be no room for speech, even though reality is not like that, and the Muslims... with the wisdom of "How much the first left for the last". Then, if this questioner is from the people of knowledge and students of knowledge, we say: look at the proof, look at the evidence. For example, Al-Albani might weaken something that al-'Asqalani graded as authentic or good. But it is better to say, "So-and-so said this, and al-'Asqalani himself said so-and-so is weak." Perhaps he will give me the answer: how do we reconcile al-'Asqalani's grading of it as good with his weakening of this narrator in another book? And if he is not a scholar, he will not be able to reconcile them.
The Shaykh : I say that 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 is that it is not necessary that a person like me who disagrees with someone who came before him and preceded 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 about me and al-'Asqalani is said similarly about al-'Asqalani and al-Dhahabi, and what is said about al-Dhahabi is said similarly about al-Bukhari. And so the examples multiply by the dozens, indeed by the hundreds. Is it said, "Why did al-Dhahabi disagree with so-and-so?" No, that is not said. The meaning of my words and my 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 did the first imam in hadith, al-Bukhari, say? There would be no room for speech, even though reality is not like that, and the Muslims... with the wisdom of "How much the first left for the last". Then, if this questioner is from the people of knowledge and students of knowledge, we say: look at the proof, look at the evidence. For example, Al-Albani might weaken something that al-'Asqalani graded as authentic or good. But it is better to say, "So-and-so said this, and al-'Asqalani himself said so-and-so is weak." Perhaps he will give me the answer: how do we reconcile al-'Asqalani's grading of it as good with his weakening of this narrator in another book? And if he is not a scholar, he will not be able to reconcile them.