Clarification of the issue of the report of a single narrator: does it convey probability or certainty?

The questioner : Regarding the report of a single narrator, does it convey to us knowledge of probability or certainty? What does that mean? There are many books of jurisprudence...?

The Shaykh : It is obligatory for the Muslim to remove from his mind certain scientific details that are the result of the experience and independent legal reasoning of the specialized scholars of hadith, because these details do not benefit the general Muslim public. What is obligatory for every Muslim is to accept every hadith that is authentic at any level of authenticity, whether it is a strange, solitary authentic hadith, or a widely circulated authentic hadith, or a famous one, or a mass-transmitted report. These levels are of benefit to the specialists and those with knowledge and learning, while others are lost in them. Therefore, it is not befitting for the general Muslim public to enter this labyrinth; rather, they only need to know whether the hadith is authentic according to the scholars of knowledge or not. If it is authentic, the matter ends there. In reality, the report of a single narrator conveys the predominant probability; this is the original ruling regarding the report of a single narrator. However, as the Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) mentions, if a report of a single narrator is accompanied by one or more corroborating circumstances, it conveys knowledge and certainty due to the addition of these circumstances to it. As you can see, who is the one who can distinguish between a report of a single narrator with a corroborating circumstance or circumstances and a report of a single narrator without one? The reference for that is to the scholars of knowledge. But let us say now that we take the highest level in hadith, which is, as he said... the mass-transmitted report. The fact that a hadith is mass-transmitted in the view of Zayd, who is a specialist, does not necessitate that it is mass-transmitted in the view of 'Amr, who is a specialist, and vice versa. So what do you think if a hadith is mass-transmitted in the view of Zayd, who is a scholar? Is it necessary that it be mass-transmitted in the view of non-specialists? I have said this once and repeated it on one occasion or another to a group of the Tawhid Party who spread this confusion among the general Muslim public in the modern era, and that is their claim that the report of a single narrator is not accepted in creed. I said to these people that the meaning of this, or the necessary consequence of this, is that you do not adopt a creed from a hadith, even if it is mass-transmitted. They said, how is that? So I explained the matter to them in the manner I mentioned just now, that the issue of mass transmission is a relative one. I said to them, for example, when there is a discussion in some jurisprudential issues between the Hanafis and the Shafi'is, or between the Hanafis and the people of hadith, for instance, they discuss a hadith that is explicit in its indication but is not mass-transmitted. It is not explicit in its wording because of the philosophy of the Hanafi school, which is that the text that conveys an obligatory ruling in jurisprudential judgments requires two conditions: it must be certain in its establishment and certain in its indication. If one of the conditions is lacking, the ruling drops from being an obligatory duty (fard) to being a mandatory duty (wajib). The statement of "wajib" is a Hanafi jurisprudistic term, where they make things wajib but do not make them fard, because the wajib in their view is a middle ground between what is fard and what is a recommended practice (sunnah). And when they define fard, it is that for which its doer is rewarded and its leaver is punished, whereas for wajib, its doer is rewarded and its leaver is punished, but the leaver of fard is not punished. So if the text comes as mass-transmitted, for example, but is not certain in its indication, it does not convey its status as fard, but rather conveys its status as wajib. And vice versa, if it is certain in its indication but not certain in its establishment, it is the same. So it is necessary that the text be certain in its establishment and certain in its indication. An example of this is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) . They say it is a pillar of the al-Fatihah. They have answers to that. What concerns us now is their statement that this is a report of a single narrator and is not certain in its establishment. But the Imam of the people of hadith and the Commander of the Muhaddithin, Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari, says at the beginning of his treatise on the obligation of recitation behind the imam: "The report of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) is mass-transmitted that he said: ." So after the report of whom do we take the report of the Imam and Commander of the Muhaddithin, or the report of the Hanafis who say that this hadith is not mass-transmitted, even though it is authentic, but it is a report of a single narrator? If we concede to the Hanafis that they are sincere and that they are not biased, and so on, and that the report did not reach them by the way of mass transmission, we say that the issue is a relative one. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. Welcome.

The questioner : May Allah honor us with His generosity, which is known between us and which gathered us in this blessed hour, and may He gather us in the abode of the Hereafter on good and on what Allah loves and is pleased with.

The Shaykh : O Allah, amen.

The questioner : May Allah grant you success and raise you in status.

The Shaykh : O Lord of the worlds.

The questioner : We testify to Allah regarding your love.

The Shaykh : May Allah love you.

The questioner : Peace in Allah.

The Shaykh : May Allah love you, the One for whom you loved me. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. Welcome, we are pleased with your health.

The questioner : Praise be to Allah, and this is from you. May Allah reward you with good. The Companions struggled in every way of struggle, and they had no need for anything.

The Shaykh : Welcome. Come, greet Abu Dawud. Do you know us by what?

The questioner : Abu Muhammad.

The Shaykh : Abu Muhammad. May Allah reward you. How are you? May Allah reward you with good. Who are you? 'Abdullah Ahmad al-Ghamidi. Welcome, welcome. May Allah keep you safe. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. ... We reached in our discussion his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) . And this hadith was taken by the majority of jurists in its apparent indication, which is that the recitation of al-Fatihah is a pillar of the prayer, and the prayer is not valid without it. So they interpreted the hadith to mean "no complete prayer." Why? For the reason I mentioned just now, which is that they do not establish an obligatory duty (fard), let alone a pillar or a condition. It is not hidden that a pillar and a condition are stronger than an obligatory duty. So if they do not establish an obligatory duty with a report of a single narrator, then a fortiori they do not establish a pillar or a condition with a report of a single narrator. On that basis, they interpreted the hadith with this interpretation because, in their view, it is a report of a single narrator. Whereas the scholars of hadith have judged this hadith to convey the conditionality of the recitation of al-Fatihah. The response to the Hanafis who said that it is a report of a single narrator is with the saying of the Commander of the Believers in hadith, which I mentioned just now: "The report of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) is mass-transmitted that he said: ." So the hadith is a report of a single narrator in the view of the Hanafis and mass-transmitted in the view of al-Bukhari. So the issue is a relative one. What was mass-transmitted in the view of these people should not, or at least does not have to, be mass-transmitted in the view of those people. I was speaking about the Tawhid Party in this time, which spread this philosophy that the report of a single narrator does not establish creed. So when I debated and argued with them on this issue, I said to them, in addition to what I mentioned just now, the necessary consequence of this is that you do not worship, you do not draw near to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) by believing in what is in a hadith, because it is a report of a single narrator. They said, how? I explained to them that the fact that a hadith is a report of a single narrator or mass-transmitted is a relative issue, as I mentioned just now. And now I said to them, I tell you, if we suppose thatThe Shaykh : Taki al-Din al-Nabhani (may Allah have mercy on him) is the greatest hadith scholar on the face of the earth. Of course, they know that he is not. He was a man among the jurists of the modern era, and a jurist of taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence), not a jurist with insight as it should be for every Muslim, and especially if he is a scholar. So we said to them, let us suppose that the man is the greatest scholar in hadith. He tells you that such and such a hadith is mass-transmitted from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) in his view, so it will remain mass-transmitted in his view, but in your view as individuals, it will become a report of a single narrator. Why? Because the scholars of hadith, when they agreed to name a hadith mass-transmitted, they require mass transmission in every layer, despite their great and significant disagreement in the number of mass transmission, from one who says ten, twenty, thirty, to one hundred people. Okay, let us take the closest examples. The mass-transmitted hadith is the one narrated by ten of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) from the Messenger of Allah, and from these ten, ten of the Tabi'un (the generation after the Companions), and from these ten, ten of the generation after the Tabi'un, and so on until it is classified in the books of hadith. So if one of us wants the hadith to be mass-transmitted in his view, he must find this hadith mass-transmitted in the view of ten of the compilers. Let it be that al-Bukhari narrated it from ten ways, and Muslim from ten ways, and Abu Dawud, and so on. At that point, the hadith becomes mass-transmitted in the view of the one who obtained these ten ways, mass-transmitted in one of the books of the Sunnah. So if he saysThe Shaykh : Taki al-Din, this hadith is mutawatir (mass-transmitted). The mutawatir status is broken between you and the mutawatir, because it is an ahad (limited chain) report. He says the hadith is mutawatir, so you take the mutawatir from an individual who broke the mutawatir. Therefore, you cannot believe that a hadith is mutawatir. And we will return to them once more. The following point: I said that they claimed that one of these people went to Japan to proselytize Islam, andThe Shaykh : Taki al-Din (may Allah have mercy on him) has a book he titled *The Path of Faith*, in which he mentioned this erroneous idea, which is that creed is not established by ahad reports. So this partisan da'iyah (caller) began teaching them *The Path of Faith*, and in what he taught, it came that an ahad report does not yield knowledge, but only yields suspicion. So there was a smart student who said to this lecturer one day, "O Professor, in the past you taught us such and such, that creed is not established by ahad reports, and now you are teaching us Islam as a creed. So you must turn back and come with the number of mutawatir, ten, twenty, thirty, and they bear witness with you that this is Islam. Only then will we accept it from you. But now... this is a consequence of the philosophy of mutawatir and ahad hadiths. I want to say that the distinction between mutawatir hadith and ahad hadith, with its categories of mashhur (famous) and mustafid (widespread), is a factual reality. But who reveals it? The scholars reveal it. Is it in the interest of the general Muslims that this philosophy be taught to them? The answer is no. Rather, this casts much doubt and suspicion upon their creed. Then, if we return to the Salaf (the earliest generations) of righteousness, for the sake of which we claim affiliation to the Salaf of righteousness, to understand how they received Islam, we find that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) sent individuals and single persons to lands, such as the land of Yemen and the land of Sham (Syria) and the like, to teach people knowledge. And especially the most famous of these messengers: Mu'adh ibn Jabal, Ali ibn Abi Talib, and Abu Musa al-Ash'ari. All of these were sent by the Messenger (peace be upon him) to Yemen as individuals, and he did not do as the Tablighi (missionaries) do today, when they go out in large groups, and there are no scholars among them. He sent individuals. And among what is established in the authentic collections is that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) sent Mu'adh to Yemen, he said to him, "Let the first thing you call them to be the testimony that there is no god but Allah." This is the foundation of creed, the foundation of tawhid (the oneness of Allah). If these people, from the scholars of kalam (theology), who brought the innovation that ahad reports do not establish creed, mean by this—and they said this, unfortunately, with great regret—it means that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) sent a da'iyah who does not establish the argument (hujjah) over the one being called, because he is an individual. And if this were attributed to a person, it would be... how can it be attributed to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him)? Thus, the reports come one after another that the Salaf of righteousness did not distinguish between an ahad report and a report of two or more, and so on. But there is no doubt that this distinction is a factual reality, and there is no motive for it. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.

Another questioner : How are you, Shaykh?

The Shaykh : Welcome.

Another questioner : Okay.

The Shaykh : May Allah make you well.

Another questioner : May Allah greet you.

The Shaykh : How are you?

Another questioner : Praise be to Allah.

The Shaykh : How are you?

Another questioner : May Allah bless you, O Professor.

The Shaykh : Are you well?

Another questioner : May Allah reward you with good.

Another questioner : We found it ready.

The Shaykh : How?

Another questioner : It is there and ready, but it must be in full dress.

The Shaykh : What is it?

Another questioner : The Pakistani one.

Another questioner : The trousers, O our Shaykh.

The Shaykh : We went down to the market.

Another questioner : Did you get it?

The Shaykh : Yes, that is correct.

Another questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Did you understand, or did you bring them?

Another questioner : I came.