Mentioning a sound hadith and how al-Tahawi attempted to reconcile it with the hadith (We do not seek help from a polytheist), and the Shaykh’s refutation of this reconciliation.

The Shaykh : On this occasion, it is fitting that you know what this hadith is about, so that the benefit of listening to our answer to that questioner is complete, and through our weakening of this hadith. So what is this hadith? The hadith states that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), during the Battle of Uhud, came to the Jews and said to them: This hadith was cited by Abu Ja‘far al-Tahawi in *Mushkil al-Athar* in order to reconcile it with the well-known hadith: And the wording in Muslim is: So al-Tahawi cited this hadith with its chain of narration and reconciled it with the second hadith, saying there is no contradiction because the People of the Book are not polytheists, and the second hadith says we will not seek help from a polytheist, so he did not seek help from polytheists, but rather from the People of the Book. In truth, such a reconciliation and such a combination have troubled me, but the method of jurisprudence and correct knowledge requires us, above all else, to look into the authenticity of this first hadith before we consider a method of reconciling it with the other hadith. As for if it is not established in reality, that may suffice us from attempting to reconcile it with the authentic hadith, especially if the reconciliation is weak, like this reconciliation that Imam Abu Ja‘far al-Tahawi adopted. And for this reason, I turned to studying the chain of narration of this hadith, and a very important reality became clear to me, which is that the Tabi‘i of the hadith, and he is the one about whom you heard the discussion, Thabit ibn al-Harith al-Ansari, is a Tabi‘i who is not authenticated at all, and only one Hadrami man narrated from him, and I have forgotten his name now. Then this specific hadith, the Hadrami says about Thabit ibn al-Harith al-Ansari that a man from his tribe, who attended the Battle of Uhud, meaning he narrated it to him. So this indicates, first, that the man was not present at the battle, because he narrates it from a man of his tribe who was present. Yes, there is no doubt this man is a Companion, even if he is not named, because all the Companions are trustworthy, but we must know the biography of this Thabit: is he a trustworthy Tabi‘i or not? So I researched and researched the books of men, such as *al-Jarh wa al-Ta‘dil* and others, and they mention him as a Tabi‘i. The books of the Companions mention him among the Companions, and among them is al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani, who mentioned him in *al-Isabah fi Asma‘ al-Sahabah* as a Companion, and he mentioned three hadiths for him, including our hadith here. In all these three hadiths, their pivot, first, is on the Hadrami; the three hadiths pivot on the Hadrami. And Thabit, in these three hadiths, did not say in any of them, "I heard the Messenger of Allah," or "I attended a session of the Messenger of Allah," or "I went on a campaign with the Messenger of Allah," or any other phrase that explicitly states that he is a Companion. Rather, he says in them, as in the first hadith, "from a man of his tribe," or he says, "The Messenger of Allah said such and such." So where does the Companionship come from, and who establishes the Companionship for this Thabit, when he does not testify in any of the narrations reported from him that he was with the Messenger (peace be upon him) or heard the Messenger (peace be upon him)? Added to this, the aforementioned Hadrami, when they wrote his biography, did not say he is trustworthy, but they did not mention for him any narration from a Companion. So how can this Thabit ibn al-Harith, with all these matters reported about him, be a Companion? And for this reason, I concluded that the man is an unknown Tabi‘i. This word reached that land, and they took an interest in the matter, because the hadith, on its surface, supports their reality there, that they are People of the Book who sought help from People of the Book. But Shaykh al-Albani weakens this hadith, so this student contacted me and asked me, and I gave him the answer that this hadith contains Thabit ibn al-Harith al-Ansari, and he is an unknown Tabi‘i. Tonight he contacted me and said, "Did you hear that they gathered and studied this hadith and found that this man is a Companion?" So I gave him the answer that this is a Companion based on the fact that you returned to the books of the Companions, but you did not know the scientific rule by which Companionship is established. So I referred them to the introduction of *al-Isabah* by Ibn Hajar, where he has very good words on how a Companion can be known. He mentioned, for example, if he says about himself in a narration by a trustworthy Tabi‘i that he is a Companion, his testimony is accepted. Or if a Tabi‘i says, "A man from the Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him) narrated to me," and he is trustworthy, his Companionship is established. Or if it comes in mass-transmitted or famous narrations that he attended the sessions or campaigns of the Messenger (peace be upon him). Yes, this Thabit ibn al-Harith does not fit any path or any way of the ways mentioned by al-Hafiz in the introduction to *al-Isabah* by which the Companionship of a person who is thought to be a Companion is established. And for this reason, I concluded that Thabit is not a Companion. What is the difference? The difference is very fundamental, because if it is established that he is a Companion, the rule is that they are trustworthy, and it is not said of a Companion: "trustworthy memorizer." No. But if he is a Tabi‘i, it is necessary to establish his trustworthiness, then establish the goodness of his retention and memorization. So if it is not established that this is a Companion, if we want to know if he is trustworthy, a trustworthy man, a memorizer, no one has dwelt on this description regarding those who wrote his biography and did not mention that he is a Companion. As for those who mentioned that he is a Companion, they mentioned the hadiths he narrated, and in none of them is there anything that confirms or establishes his Companionship. Rather, there is that observation, and for this observation that I mentioned earlier, which is that the Hadrami who narrated from him, when they mentioned him in his biography, did not say "he narrated from so-and-so the Companion," because of the observation, which is not written down, and because of the first observation in the critique of crowding and shoving this man into the Companions. You will not find this written down in the books of the scholars of knowledge. For this reason, I said what I said to that student: that you are either from the people of knowledge, in which case you have your opinion, your independent legal reasoning, or if you are not so, and you testify that you are students of knowledge, it is not permissible for you to fall into confusion. Either you are a scholar, in which case you rely on your opinion and do not follow others, or you are a student of knowledge So where do these students, and there are many like them today, get this from? I was just about to listen to you what I wrote, I authored, looking at some writings from the results of attaching oneself to this knowledge quickly, and the errors that follow from that. And for that reason, I said to these people, "My brother, this knowledge requires a long time until a person discovers matters of which he finds nothing written down. This knowledge must emanate from the person of this scholar." So I said in my previous speech that before we attempt to reconcile two hadiths, we must be certain of the authenticity of the hadith that contradicts the authentic hadith. So I did what I explained earlier, and it became clear that the hadith is weak. But from the method of the people of knowledge in responding to doubts and difficulties, it is correct. I said that this hadith is weak and I explained the cause, but this is not sufficient for all people, because as you heard, if I say that this hadith is weak, it is necessary that all humanity will believe the words of Nasser?! No. If we want to place the jurisprudential answer on the assumption that this hadith is correct, I said in my response to al-Tahawi, and it is written for me in this book: How can it be said that the Jews and the Christians are permissible to seek help from because they are not polytheists, while Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said: So they are polytheists. And He said about the Jews that they said: So these are polytheists. But yes, Allah (Mighty and Majestic) distinguished in some rulings between polytheists who have a Book and polytheists who do not have a Book. So the reconciliation between the two hadiths from the angle that the People of the Book are not polytheists, so there is no contradiction between this hadith and the hadith This answer is not correct.