Answering the doubt that the Companions, who narrated the hadiths, are human beings and may have made mistakes regarding the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him).

The Shaykh : There was a question in the previous lesson about an issue raised by some people today regarding certain hadiths that appear to this group to be contrary to science, or at least not proven by science. We answered that in a way that, if Allah wills, removed the difficulty and dispelled the doubt. Among the difficulties mentioned by the questioner in that referenced question was that those who narrated these hadiths from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) are humans like us; they are the Companions, humans like us; meaning: it is possible that they made mistakes in what they attributed to the Messenger (may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him). My brother “Ayyad” reminds me now; I remember that I answered this doubt, so he reminds me that you actually answered it, but the issue seems to need some explanation. So I said at that time: Yes, these Companions are humans, but these are the ones who transmitted to us the entire Shari'ah, and they are trustworthy, preservers, and upright. These are the same people who transmitted to us those hadiths that those people found difficult. It is not valid in the Shari'ah, nor in reason, to consider these people trustworthy in one aspect and not trustworthy in another, because both aspects share the same entry point of transmitting knowledge. These Companions transmit knowledge from the Messenger (peace be upon him): knowledge of what is lawful and forbidden, morals, and etiquette, and so on. They transmitted all of that from the Messenger (peace be upon him); so they are a proof even for those people. But when they transmit matters of the unseen, and science does not reach knowing their essence and reality, these people from the Companions become not trustworthy. There is absolutely nothing of this in knowledge.
Therefore, we say: The science of hadith is an independent science with its own principles and rules. It is a science by which there is no way for any other to know the events that passed before us and which we did not witness with our own eyes. This science does not exist in any nation since nations were established on the face of the earth except in the Islamic nation. This is by which Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) favored the nation of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). This is a self-evident matter as long as Allah (Mighty and Majestic) sealed all the Shari'ahs with the religion of Islam, and sealed all the prophets and messengers with their seal, Muhammad (may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him). So this necessitates that Islam has sound principles and foundations upon which the transmission of those hadiths and sayings is built, which the Prophet (may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him) used to speak, as long as our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) entrusted to him (peace and blessings be upon him) the explanation of this heavenly Qur'an to the people: ; so this necessitates matters: First, that the first generation in whom the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) was sent with his Qur'an, and who took charge of explaining and clarifying it to them, should be at a rare level of understanding first, and of precision and memorization second. Otherwise, how would the true promise of Allah be realized: If we assume that the Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him) are like those whom the Messenger (peace be upon him) invoked woe upon when he said: ?
Yes?

The questioner : The funnels of the people.

The Shaykh : The people, yes, . What are the funnels? It is the plural of funnel. The funnel that is placed on, for example, a “tin” to pour oil so that it does not spill. So the funnels of the people means that the speech passes through them and goes out; it does not settle in them. This is a warning... from the speech of the Messenger (peace be upon him); meaning, woe to those who listen to the word but do not preserve it and do not follow it. So it is impossible, as long as Allah (Mighty and Majestic) promised us that He revealed the Qur'an and that He will preserve it, that He must actually enable people to perform this religious duty. So they—the Companions—are not funnels, but they were preservers. The example is struck for them in memorization such that you do not know a nation in its individuals, not in its groups, like the groups of the nation of Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the precision of memorization and preservation. Therefore, His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): requires that this explanation be transmitted to preservers. Then these preservers have a second duty: to transmit it to those after them so that the true news of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) continues: . Otherwise, would this divine news be true if the Companions preserved this explanation and this clarification and these hadiths they received from the Messenger (may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him), and then there was nothing after that; meaning: this explained Shari'ah in the speech of the Messenger (peace be upon him) did not pass to the second generation, who are the Tabi'un?
Of course, the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) would not be true at that time: , and it is not possible for the matter to be so; meaning: that it would not be true, but it must be true. How is that? By these intermediaries who transmitted to us the explanation of the Messenger (peace be upon him). The first generation are the noble Companions, and they were commanded to convey, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . Likewise, he encouraged them to convey by supplicating for them with freshness, saying: to the end of the hadith.
So if we doubt these Companions, in their precision, in their truthfulness; that means there is no value then to the believer’s faith that the Qur'an is the speech of Allah. Why? Because first: this Qur'an, which is the speech of Allah, did not come to us directly as revelation from the sky, but to the Messenger (peace be upon him), and he to the Companions, and the Companions to us in sequence. And second: there is no value to this transmission of the words of the Qur'an except that they also transmit with it its meaning and its explanation, as you knew from the previous verse: ; so they—the Companions—transmitted two things: the explanation and the explained. The explanation is the Sunnah and the hadiths of the Messenger (peace be upon him), and the explained is the Noble Qur'an.
So every Muslim must necessarily believe that these Companions must be preservers and truthful in what they transmitted from the Master of the Messengers. If a doubter doubts these in one aspect of their narrations, the other aspect collapses naturally; because it is not possible to say this person is a preserver and not a preserver; because that combines two contradictions. So if we move from the first generation to the second generation, who are the Tabi'un; likewise, it is necessary to necessitate that these Tabi'un performed the same duty that the first generation, the Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him), performed. Otherwise, deficiency would enter the religion of Islam, if we say as some people say—and here is the point—that these are humans, it is possible that they make mistakes, it is possible that they forget, it is possible, possible, and so on.
Yes, we say: rational possibility is broad in scope and possible. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), in his capacity as a human being, is such that one could say of him what is said of the least of human beings. But not every possibility is a reality; not every possibility is a reality. I say: it is possible that the Lord of the Worlds creates a human being with two heads, for example; it is possible, because Allah is capable of all things. But did this happen? And a person can expand on assuming theoretically possible matters, then not find them in the reality of life. So it is possible that these humans make mistakes, but Allah (Mighty and Majestic) preserved a group of these humans from falling into what would compromise the transmission of the message and the delivery of the trust. The first of these were the Companions, then came after them the Tabi'un. There is no doubt that among the Tabi'un were people—as the history of hadith itself testifies—among them were people, for example, who had poor memory, and after that, among them were those who were accused of dishonesty, and so on. But so that the argument of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) would remain standing, He appointed for all the narrators of hadith, from the Tabi'un and those after them, the imams of hadith. He appointed them to distinguish the memorizer from the non-memorizer, and the truthful from the liar. And this is a science—as I mentioned earlier—that has no existence in any religion other than Islam.
Take now any French, English, or German history, or anything else; do you find so-and-so is trustworthy and so-and-so is not trustworthy, so-and-so is a memorizer and so-and-so is not a memorizer, so-and-so’s father testifies against his son that he lies, and the son testifies against another class that his father lies?! These details in the science of al-jarh wa al-ta'dil (the critique and vindication of narrators) have absolutely no existence in any nation of nations except in the nation of Islam. All of this is so that the truthful news of Allah is realized: . So when the one who says, with simplicity, or rather with dullness: "Yes, these are humans, they might make mistakes," it is as if he either did not read or hear anything about the efforts of the scholars of hadith over the long centuries, or that he erased it from his mind completely. Because he is like the foolish boy who inherits a great deal of wealth from his father, and because he did not toil for it, he does not appreciate its value, and soon this wealth goes away from him. Because the one who did not toil for a thing does not appreciate it. And so it is with these ignorant people. They say to you: "These are humans, so they might make mistakes." Yes, my sir, these are humans and they might make mistakes, but those who make mistakes were distinguished by this long history from those who do not make mistakes in narrating hadith, and those who lie in it were also distinguished from those who do not lie but rather tell the truth, and so on.
Therefore, there is no room for a person to come in this time and say: "The narrators of hadith, from the Companions and those below them, are humans and they might make mistakes." Because the meaning of this is the squandering and nullification of the efforts of these scholars over all the centuries. And this is, of course, a foolishness beyond which there is no foolishness. Therefore, perhaps this amount is sufficient to refute this last doubt regarding the hadiths related to some of the unseen matters, or medical, or astronomical, or similar to that which science has not discovered. It is said: Since these hadiths were narrated to us by those Companions whose justice, precision, and memory were established, and then they were received from them by those Tabi'un whose justice, precision, and memory were established, and then the followers of the Tabi'un, and so on, until they were recorded in the books with their chains of narration, and these chains have their criteria that clarify whether this hadith is valid or not valid; as long as the matter is so, it is not easy for a person who is more ignorant than Abu Jahil in this science to say: "Yes, this hadith is unreasonable, and the fact that it was narrated by so-and-so Companion or so-and-so Tabi'i means he is a human who makes mistakes."
I will address this person in his language. I will say to him: "Are you a human who makes mistakes, or are you infallible?" He will say: "No, I make mistakes." Good, so what made the mistake of the people outweigh your mistake, so that you were certain that they are mistaken and you are correct, while you are one, your mind is one, your judgment is one, and then you are completely ignorant in this science?!
Therefore, this hammer with which its owner destroys himself before he destroys others with it. And as it was said: "The circles turn around the aggressor."