The Shaykh’s warning about the harm of weak and fabricated hadiths and their negative impact on the Ummah.

The Shaykh : Here we must pause, and I hope it will be a short one. As you know, the Sunnah has been infiltrated by things that were not part of it. It has been mixed with things foreign to it, just as a skilled doctor prescribes a treatment for a patient; if foreign substances are added to that treatment, the patient does not benefit from it. This is like the authentic Sunnah: if things that are not part of it are mixed in, people are diverted from the authentic Sunnah, which is the cure for their psychological, intellectual, and mental ailments, among others. Perhaps it would be good for me to give you an example of what these hadiths that are not authentic from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) do. How do they divert people from acting upon the verses, let alone the authentic hadiths? For example, there is a hadith: What does this hadith mean? We have a Syrian expression: "Put your feet in cold water." So don’t worry about the prayer; you just pray four rak'ahs in the last Friday of Ramadan, and it is an expiation. Not for the life of a person under religious obligation. Reflect on the signs of fabrication here. The ordinary person, no matter how long he lives—sixty at most, seventy at most, eighty is rare, very rare—if he is eighty, subtract fifteen years of puberty, what remains? Fifty-five. He is saying it is an expiation for seventy years. So this hadith... you might be surprised if I tell you that this hadith is not common among the general public. This hadith is mentioned in fiqh books, in a book called *Al-Nihaya fi al-Fiqh al-Hanafi*. When some commentators and some Hanafi scholars who compiled this, and who have little knowledge of Hanafi fiqh and knowledge of authentic and weak hadiths, came along, some of them, like...The Shaykh : Ali al-Qari, the author of *Mirqat al-Mafatih Sharh Mishkat al-Masabih*, and...The Shaykh : Abu al-Hasan al-Laknawi, the Indian. These people came and pointed out that this hadith is fabricated and warned against being deceived by it because it appears in a book of fiqh, namely *Al-Nihaya fi Fiqh al-Madhhab al-Hanafi*. This indicates that if a Muslim does not carry out the commands of Allah , there is no need for four rak'ahs that you pray with a specific surah recited in the first rak'ah, and so on, until it becomes an expiation for all these prayers you intentionally and deliberately left. It is not equal to the time you lived under religious obligation, but even more than that. Also, this hadith contains a hadith that contradicts the authentic Sunnah, and this is more famous than the hadith I mentioned. That one, praise be to Allah, is not found except in the depths of some books that the general public does not reach because it is rarely found in the depths of books. But this hadith I am going to mention to you is not absent from any book of Hanafi fiqh; it is mentioned in them. It is even hung on the heads of minbars in some mosques in our country, Syria, and perhaps here. It is: Is there no one among you who has heard this hadith? You must have, but surely you have not heard the first hadith. You have not heard the first one, so praise your Lord. But this hadith, due to its fame, is very well known. It is placed on the minbar. There is hardly a mosque in Syria that does not have a beautifully decorated plaque on the door of the minbar, written in Thuluth script, saying: He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: The fame of this hadith has reached the point where it is cited as evidence in the largest mosque in Syria, which is the Umayyad Mosque, known as the Umayyad Mosque. It was built decades ago; it is a modern mosque opposite the exit of al-Hamidiyyah market, above the bank. What is its name? The mosque... I forgot what its name is. The one who leveled the minbar was a friend, a brother to a friend of ours. He was a classmate with me in school, and then we met on the methodology with him. His brother is a woodcarver who makes decorative carvings. I don’t know what they call it...

The questioner : Discussion

The Shaykh : Discussion. The important thing is that my friend had previously heard that this hadith has no basis. His brother the carpenter came one day with a paper plaque on which this hadith was written in very beautiful Thuluth script. Your friend asked his brother, "What is this?" He said, "This was brought to me by the supervisor of the mosque, and he told me, 'We want you to carve this hadith on the wood to the size of the minbar door.'" Your friend, whose name is Mahmoud Maydani—I don’t know if you know him or not—the point is, his brother said to him, "My brother, this hadith is not authentic." He said, "What do you mean?" He said, "So-and-so, meaning he is a specialist in hadith." In short, the matter reached the Director of Endowments. His brother the carpenter was informed of this news: how is this hadith not authentic, and it is placed on the minbar of our largest mosque, the minbar of the Umayyad Mosque? Yes, evidence. So this hadith has reached a level of broadcasting and dissemination that it has become like a Qur'anic verse, firmly established in their minds. Consequently, if one of them enters the mosque, he prostrates as a hen prostrates over her eggs. As for his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): They have abrogated this with this hadith that has no basis. This hadith that has no basis, in both its parts, contradicts two authentic hadiths. It says: If it contradicts his saying, "There is no prayer." His saying (peace and blessings be upon him): contradicts his saying, "There is no prayer." Where is the contradiction in his saying, "And no speech"? He said (peace and blessings be upon him): So there is no harm in you speaking when the imam starts speaking, because he says: Not while the imam is on the minbar and the imam is delivering the sermon. The point is, if we say that understanding the religion requires returning to the Sunnah of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), it should be noted that in doing so, one must look to the authentic Sunnah, otherwise the Muslim will be led astray far away. And these two examples are sufficient for you: one nullifies obligatory legal commands, and the other contradicts authentic Prophetic hadiths. Yes.

The questioner : His saying: They said, "No."

The Shaykh : May Allah forgive you, Ahmad. The point is, we proceed with what we were discussing. So, the authentic Sunnah is necessary for understanding the Noble Qur'an.