The Hafith's statement regarding a narrator: "Trustworthy but makes errors," and other such expressions

The questioner : The Hafith Ibn Hajar's statement regarding a narrator: "Trustworthy but makes mistakes" or "Trustworthy but makes errors," and other such expressions. We find that sometimes you grade a hadith as authentic based on the presence of such a person, and sometimes you grade it as good, even though it contains a man with this description. Is there a specific criterion?

The Shaykh : Is there what?

The questioner : A criterion for this matter?

The Shaykh : The criterion is to return to the words from which Ibn Hajar derived the terms I mentioned earlier. I am not a Hafith... so I may take from his statement and leave it, or I may rely on his statement and not rely on it, because I do not rely on his summary that he included in his *Taqrib*. Rather, I return to the original source, which is *al-Tahdhib*. Sometimes I agree with him, and sometimes I differ from him. Those who know this reality ask themselves the same question you asked. For example, I may weaken a hadith in which he says of one of its narrators, "Trustworthy but makes errors," while I grade as good a hadith containing a narrator about whom he said the same thing he said about the narrator whose hadith I weakened. Why? Because in one case, it is more likely to me that the hadith is good, while in the case of another narrator about whom he said the same phrase, it is more likely to me that the hadith is weak, not good. The good hadith, as the Hafith al-Dhahabi (may Allah have mercy on him) says in his treatise *al-Muqaddimah* on the terminology of hadith, is one of the most subtle sciences of hadith, because the scholar himself hesitates in his judgment; sometimes he grades a hadith as good, and sometimes he weakens it. The narrator is the same. Why? Because for this narrator, it is more likely to him that the hadith is good in one instance, and more likely that it is weak in another, yet he cites it as evidence. So the precision is significant for a single Hafith or hadith scholar, let alone when there are two hadith scholars, each with his own opinion and independent legal reasoning.

The questioner : So can it be said that this category is subject to circumstantial evidence? The same narrator might have a hadith graded as good?

The Shaykh : It is subject to circumstantial evidence as far as the scholars are concerned, but as for the beginners...

The questioner : Ibn Hajar himself?

The Shaykh: No.

The questioner : He grades the hadith as good.

The Shaykh : Ibn Hajar himself, when he says "Trustworthy," it means that the hadith is good. When he says "Trustworthy but makes errors," it means that the hadith is weak but cited as evidence. However, his independent legal reasoning may change in some applications, but as a rule, this is his rule.