Miscellaneous by Al-Albani-138

The Shaykh : And therefore, he followed the previous hadith with the hadith of 'Uqbah ibn 'Amir (may Allah be pleased with him). He said: I said, O Messenger of Allah, what is salvation? What is the escape from the punishment of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) on the Day of Resurrection? He said: It was narrated by al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Abi al-Dunya, and al-Bayhaqi, all of them through the route of 'Ubayd Allah ibn Zahr from 'Ali ibn Yazid from al-Qasim from him, and al-Tirmidhi said: It is a good, isolated hadith. In this hadith, after speaking about some of its tracing, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) commands 'Uqbah ibn 'Amir with three characteristics which he made the cause of salvation. The first characteristic is meaning do not speak except with what benefits you and what helps you. It is authentic from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) many hadiths encouraging turning away from speech except in what contains good. It came in Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim from the hadith of Abu Shurayh al-Khuza'i and others that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . It may occur to some people that this command is a command for seclusion, seclusion from people absolutely. And the matter is not so. Rather, this is an advice from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) for the person to stay in his house when the fitnahs multiply like rain. At that time, the person feels that there is no benefit in mixing with people, but rather he must save himself. So let him stay in his house. And there is no doubt that such an advice from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) for the Muslim to stay in his home cannot be understood as establishing a rule for the Muslim in every time and in every place. That is because Islam was established on the basis of and that requires mixing with people and conveying the call to them. For this reason, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) says: But if the mixing of the Muslim with people results in him being harmed and the Muslim being hurt in his belief, in his morals, and in his religion, here comes this noble advice from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in his saying: Thus, we must reconcile between the hadiths, just as reconciliation is required between the verses themselves, because they all came from one source. It is not permissible for us to take this hadith as a constant rule and negate the hadith of the believer who mixes with people, and so on. Nor should we make this last hadith a rule and negate the hadith we are reading now in the book. Rather, each of the two hadiths has its place and its appropriateness. Then he said to him (may the prayers and peace be upon him): And this command is a binding command always and forever, whatever the condition of the Muslim, whether he lives secluded from people or mixing with people. He should always engage in the causes that soften his heart and make his tears flow, and that is to weep over his sin. And this necessarily entails that the person accounts for himself and thinks about what his hands have done in his day or in his night, so that the person is mindful of his Lord. And perhaps he will be written among those seven who were mentioned in previous lessons, among them the beginning of the hadith, you remember and their mention, and among them . Here a question may arise regarding this tracing, where he attributed the hadith to al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Abi al-Dunya, and al-Bayhaqi, and said that all of them are through the route of 'Ubayd Allah ibn Zahr, and this is a weak man, from 'Ali ibn Yazid, who is al-Ahlan al-Shami, and he is like the first in weakness, from al-Qasim Abu al-Rahman al-Dimashqi, who was a client of Abu Umaymah. There is discussion about him, but it does not entail that he is like the first two. Then he said: And al-Tirmidhi said: It is a good, isolated hadith. How, first of all, did we choose this hadith as one of the established hadiths, when it is from this single route through 'Ubayd Allah ibn Zahr from 'Ali ibn Yazid al-Ahlan? The answer is that it is a correct hadith by virtue of other evidence, meaning by its corroborations and routes, and not specifically for this route. Even though al-Tirmidhi himself grades this route as good in itself and says, as you heard, "It is a good, isolated hadith." And perhaps it is good to remind again of the difference between al-Tirmidhi's saying "good, isolated hadith" in such a case and his saying in another hadith "good hadith." What is the difference between the two statements? Sometimes we find al-Tirmidhi saying "good, isolated hadith" as here, and sometimes he does not use the word "isolated" but limits himself to saying "good hadith." The answer is that this is a technical term of al-Tirmidhi, and a student of knowledge should be aware of it, so that when he reads his book, if Allah wills, or reads a report from it, "good, isolated hadith" sometimes and "good hadith" sometimes, he will be aware that when he says "good, isolated hadith," its chain of narration itself is good, so the hadith is good in itself according to him. And when he says only "good hadith," it means that the chain of the hadith has weakness in his view, so it is strengthened by other evidence. And from this it appears that the one who transmits from al-Tirmidhi's book should be precise in his transmission. He must be aware of this difference between his saying "good, isolated hadith" and his saying only "good hadith." And with great regret, many of those who have knowledge and engagement with hadith do not keep this difference in mind, so they do not transmit precisely. The hadith may be in al-Tirmidhi where he said "good, isolated hadith," and he may say, "We are abbreviating his statement, so we say only 'good hadith,'" and the one who has knowledge of al-Tirmidhi's terminology will understand that there is weakness in the chain of this hadith, but al-Tirmidhi graded it as good due to its corroborations. And the reality is that al-Tirmidhi may have graded it as good in itself, indicating that by the word "isolated," so the transmitter abbreviated this word and implied the opposite of what the author al-Tirmidhi himself intended. This is a short word regarding this hadith terminology in al-Tirmidhi's saying, from the side of "good, isolated hadith," and in ... for this hadith, even though its route is weak. The conclusion is that this hadith is correct by virtue of other evidence.