The Obligation of Acting Upon Ahad Reports in Matters of Creed and Rulings

The Shaykh : This is also a failure to meet the condition mentioned earlier. As for us, if we say that an ahad report, for example—as I think we have touched upon this in some sessions—does not provide certainty but rather preponderant probability, the Shari'ah has commanded us to act upon what is preponderantly probable. This applies not only to a hadith that reached us through an authentic chain from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), but also to the ijtihad of an imam among the imams of the Muslims. Due to these technical terms that were not given their due consideration, and because that essential condition of strict adherence was not observed, they have created for themselves a space to reject many established hadiths from the Messenger (peace be upon him) under the pretext that they relate to the fundamentals, and that the fundamentals are not established except by evidence that is certain in its authenticity and certain in its meaning. On this occasion, you have a treatise on the hadith, stating that rulings and creed are established by it. You have two such treatises, and both are with you.

Another questioner : Our Shaykh... the ahad report and its evidentiary status; is this currently available?

The Shaykh : Is it currently available?

The questioner : And I think you have the one titled "The Hadith is Evidence in Itself."

The Shaykh : It is available with us, yes, and it is available with Abu al-Hasan. The point is that the matter has reached the rejection of hundreds of authentic hadiths due to this division, in which the condition mentioned earlier was not observed. And you know, and there is no need to repeat, that this leads them to reject the meanings of the Noble Qur'an as well. Because when they require mass transmission (tawatur) in a hadith that contains creed, they require certain meaning in a verse that contains creed. If the meaning is not certain, they treat it like an ahad report in that they do not act upon it and depart from its meaning through figurative interpretation (ta'wil). There is no doubt that this is among the many, and very many, religious innovations. In summary, the division is valid in light of the condition, but not valid if the condition is ignored. May Allah bless you.

The questioner : In your discussion regarding ahad reports and that they provide preponderant probability, which you have previously established as the stronger position, and you even said—and there is no doubt about this—I ask about some of the objections raised by the Khawarij in this chapter. They say: How do you act upon ahad reports in a book on the chapter of attributes, when they do not provide certainty or knowledge? How do you define an attribute based on preponderant probability? Either you do not act upon them, or you are required to say that ahad reports provide knowledge. How do you get out of this difficulty?

The Shaykh : Is this their Shari'ah or their intellect?

The questioner : No, it is from them.

The Shaykh : That is enough; their argument has collapsed.

The questioner : But many of the logical necessities are intellectual in their very nature!

The Shaykh : No, there is no intellectual necessity that contradicts the Shari'ah.

The questioner : We say that this intellectual necessity has been proven by evidence to be contrary.

The Shaykh : Yes, and I once said—I do not know if this was recorded or not—they claimed that a member of the Tahrir Party went to Japan to call to Islam. I do not know if it reached him or if he heard it, but he went to Japan to call to Islam. Among his first studies was what is in the book of his Shaykh, Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani (may Allah have mercy on him), titled "The Path of Faith." He read to them the so-called "Path of Faith," in which it is stated...The Shaykh : ...may Allah have mercy on him, and may He forgive us and him, that creed does not require acting upon ahad reports. After delivering several lectures on the topic, he reached this point. One of the attendees, one of their intelligent ones, stood up and said: "O so-and-so, based on this, you must return to your country and come back with a mass-transmitted report (tawatur), because you are conveying a ruling in the Shari'ah that relates to creed, and you say that creed is not established by an ahad report. Your statement is itself a creed. If we accept your statement, you must return to your country and come back with a mass-transmitted report." This is truly a logical necessity for them. And we know that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) sent callers to many lands to call to Islam, especially the lands of Yemen, which are on the border with the lands of the Hijaz. He sent Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, Mu'adh ibn Jabal, Ali ibn Abi Talib, and others. These were individuals. Did they teach the people the branches, in their terminology, or as the authentic text in Sahih Muslim states? The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)—and the hadith is from Anas—when he sent Mu'adh to Yemen, he said: Allah is the Greatest. The first principle. He sent only one person with it. Did the argument (hujjah) become established against the people of Yemen by the report of a single person, in matters of creed? Unfortunately, due to the ignorance of these people regarding the Shari'ah, and this is what we see, this affliction has now spread. They say: "Knowledge is transmitted by the individual, and this is Mu'adh, but the argument was not established." I said to them: "Woe to you! The Messenger of Allah sends a person to call to Islam, and the argument is not established by him? Then what is the benefit of this sending?" The point is that when these people say, "Intellectually, why or how is it permissible to act upon ahad reports in the hadiths of attributes?" Our answer is: We follow the Shari'ah without philosophy, without introducing the intellect into what it cannot penetrate. We always compare the human intellect to the other senses; he looks and he hears, but within certain limits. His intellect also has limits. Therefore, he must stop at the limits of the Shari'ah. And if Allah, Mighty and Majestic, sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over all religion, and the religion includes creeds and includes rulings, and He did not distinguish in any text or in any means by which He called people to enter Islam, He never distinguished between the fundamentals and the branches, in their terminology. Even if these divisions have their validity regarding the ruling on the one who acts upon them and the one who leaves them, as for the fact that the argument is established by a single report in all of Islam, whether it is a fundamental or a branch, Islam did not distinguish. The practical evidence established by our righteous predecessors and the Islamic conquests, through which Islam spread by individuals who were callers, merchants, not individuals who were scholar-callers, as the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) used to send, as he did with the seventy reciters whom he sent for da'wah. This is our answer to that intellectual philosophy. And we must draw their attention to this fact: that the intellect has limits that it is not permissible to exceed, in the reality of the human being, let alone in the reality of the Shari'ah of Islam.