Why do you differentiate between good hadiths, taking some and leaving others, such as the hadith

The questioner : The questioner asks why you differentiate between good hadiths, taking some and leaving others. For example, the hadith of al-Tirmidhi from 'Umar ibn al-Khattab from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) Al-Hafiz ibn Hajar said that it has corroborating narrations supporting it, including one from Abu Dawud from the hadith of Ibn 'Abbas, the hadith of al-Sa'ib ibn Yazid, and other corroborating narrations, and their totality indicates that it is a good hadith. You do not act upon this one, but you act upon the hadith which is a good hadith narrated by Ahmad, and the hadith narrated by al-Tirmidhi.

The Shaykh : This is a precise scientific question; a quick, hasty answer is not sufficient to satisfy the questioner. However, a general answer is necessary, which is that we do not act upon the first hadith, which the questioner claims is a good hadith. He says so out of following (taqlid), and this is his duty, naturally, regarding Al-Hafiz ibn Hajar. Al-Hafiz ibn Hajar himself acknowledges that the hadith reached the level of "good" in his view through the totality of its chains. For a period of a few years, we believed this statement to be correct, meaning that this hadith is good through other chains. Then, when Allah (Mighty and Majestic) willed for me to devote myself to tracing the hadiths of a book of jurisprudence known as *Manar al-Sabil*, I traced them, and this hadith came to me. Here, I did not simply follow others in authenticating, grading as good, or weakening a hadith, because that does not involve much work, and a beginner in any field of knowledge can do that by saying "So-and-so said such and such, and so-and-so said such and such." But I proceeded with research, investigation, and digging. When I came to this hadith and studied the chains by which Al-Hafiz ibn Hajar strengthened it, I found them to be severely weak. Every chain contains severe weakness. They have established in the terminology of hadith science that a weak hadith is strengthened by the multiplicity of chains only if the weakness in its chains is not severe. When I found that this rule did not apply or was not realized in the individual chains of wiping the face with the hands after supplication, I left the hadith as weak and left the individual chains as severely weak. This is the general answer. As for the detailed answer, this requires that we task the questioner, who appears to want scientific research, to extract these chains, each chain separately, and study them yourself if you can, or through someone else, regarding the weakness of the narrator by which the hadith is weak. If you find that it is only slight weakness, meaning he is trustworthy in himself but has weakness in his memory, then your question returns to me, and my response is that I do not see what you see. However, it is permissible for you to adopt the opinion of Al-Hafiz ibn Hajar with insight, according to your own opinion and independent legal reasoning (ijtihad). This is, of course, until the questioner does this. I think there are... and there are difficulties and troubles. But we are now, by the grace of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), in the process of printing this book in which I traced this hadith, which is *Irwaa' al-Ghalil fi Takhrij Ahadith Manar al-Sabil*. Hopefully, this book, or at least the first volume containing this hadith, will be published, and the questioner will look at it, and thus look at my treatment and my uncovering of the severe weakness I pointed out in the individual chains of it. After that, he will hold himself accountable. If he is convinced by what I said, the question will not be raised. If he is not convinced except by what Al-Hafiz ibn Hajar said, we do not impose our opinion on others, and consequently, it is not permissible for others to impose their opinion on us .