Is the criticism of a narrator given precedence over the vindication, and the confirmation of reliability over the weakening, or is it the other way around?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Regarding ... ... .
The Shaykh : The point of distinction is poor memory, poor memorization of hadiths and their accurate transmission. Is that sufficient? Unless you mean something else?
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : Yes?
The questioner : The rule is: criticism takes precedence over vindication, unless ... the criticism is detailed.
The Shaykh : That is, it is explained.
The questioner : It is explained, yes, that is right.
The Shaykh : Yes, that is the explanation. The intended meaning of the rule is that if one man says of any narrator that he is weak, and another says of him that he is trustworthy, then the criticism takes precedence over the weakening. Why? Because the weakening is vague and unexplained. But if an imam says of a narrator, "He is weak due to his poor memory," and another imam says of him, "He is trustworthy," then the weakening takes precedence here over the confirmation of reliability. Why? Because the weakening is explained and clarified, and the clarification is the poor memory.
The questioner : What do they mean by the first case?
The Shaykh : We said confirmation of reliability. In the first case, it was "trustworthy" versus "weak," so the confirmation of reliability took precedence over the weakening. This is because the weakening was a vague, unexplained criticism, so it was set aside. It was set aside because there were imams who confirmed his reliability. In the second case, it was "trustworthy" versus "weak due to his poor memory." Here the result is reversed, and the criticism takes precedence over the vindication and confirmation of reliability. This is because the criticism is explained by a valid explanation, which is poor memory in hadith.
Perhaps this is the answer to your question? Very well.
The Shaykh : The point of distinction is poor memory, poor memorization of hadiths and their accurate transmission. Is that sufficient? Unless you mean something else?
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : Yes?
The questioner : The rule is: criticism takes precedence over vindication, unless ... the criticism is detailed.
The Shaykh : That is, it is explained.
The questioner : It is explained, yes, that is right.
The Shaykh : Yes, that is the explanation. The intended meaning of the rule is that if one man says of any narrator that he is weak, and another says of him that he is trustworthy, then the criticism takes precedence over the weakening. Why? Because the weakening is vague and unexplained. But if an imam says of a narrator, "He is weak due to his poor memory," and another imam says of him, "He is trustworthy," then the weakening takes precedence here over the confirmation of reliability. Why? Because the weakening is explained and clarified, and the clarification is the poor memory.
The questioner : What do they mean by the first case?
The Shaykh : We said confirmation of reliability. In the first case, it was "trustworthy" versus "weak," so the confirmation of reliability took precedence over the weakening. This is because the weakening was a vague, unexplained criticism, so it was set aside. It was set aside because there were imams who confirmed his reliability. In the second case, it was "trustworthy" versus "weak due to his poor memory." Here the result is reversed, and the criticism takes precedence over the vindication and confirmation of reliability. This is because the criticism is explained by a valid explanation, which is poor memory in hadith.
Perhaps this is the answer to your question? Very well.
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.