Giving an example of an anomalous hadith.

The Shaykh : I will give you an example of an anomalous hadith, using the saying: "Killing two birds with one stone." First, this is an example of an anomalous hadith; second, it serves as a warning about the weakness of this addition, because it was reported in one of the "Sahihayn," namely the hadith of Muslim in his "Sahih" from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that he said one day—and this statement is authentic, but the point is in what follows—: . He (peace and blessings be upon him) said this hadith, then entered his chamber. His companions began to speculate and guess among themselves who these people would be who enter Paradise without reckoning or punishment, their faces like the full moon on the night of the full moon. Some said: Who could these be but the Muhajireen who migrated from Makkah and fled with their religion to al-Madinah or elsewhere, such as Abyssinia? Others said: They are only the Ansar who supported the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in the time of hardship. Others said: Neither these nor those, but rather their sons who will come after them; they will believe in the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) without having seen him. Before they finished their speculation, the Messenger (peace be upon him) appeared to complete his first statement and said: . A man from the Companions named 'Ikashah—and it is permissible to say 'Ikashah—said: "O Messenger of Allah, call upon Allah to make me one of them." He said: . Another man stood up and said the same thing: "Call upon Allah to make me one of them." He said: .
This hadith in this context is authentic and agreed upon byThe Shaykh : them. Where is the anomaly? Muslim was unique in one of his narrations by adding in his description of those seventy thousand: . So what did he add? . He said: . The hadith agreed upon byThe Shaykh : them without the addition is: . It is only in the wording: . Muslim was unique in one of his narrations by saying: . Is there anyone in Imam Muslim's chain for this addition who deserves to be described as weak, or whose hadith deserves to be described as denounceable? The answer is no. All his narrators, from his shaykh to the Companion of the hadith, are all trustworthy, indeed memorizers. Where did the weakness of this addition come from: ? It came from the uniqueness of a shaykh of Muslim, who is the Imam al-Hafiz Sa'id ibn Mansur, some parts of whose book "al-Sunan" were printed in India. This Hafiz made a mistake and brought this addition: . How did we judge that this Hafiz made a mistake and did not memorize, which is contrary to the attribute—and peace be upon you—contrary to the attribute by which this Imam was described by all the hadith scholars? He is among the first mentioned by the Hafiz al-Naqid al-Dhahabi al-Dimashqi in his book "Tadhkirat al-Huffaz." So how could we judge that this Hafiz's addition in this specific hadith is an anomalous addition?
And I say frankly: I did not find anyone to cite in support of my judgment that this addition is an anomalous addition when I taught this hadith at the Islamic University more than thirty years ago. Then, when I obtained a copy of the book "al-Fatawa" by Imam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him), I found him saying that the chain of this addition is weak.

Another questioner: Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : Like this. And peace and mercy of Allah be upon you.
I was somewhat reassured by this judgment, but I increased in knowledge and certainty of the correctness of my judgment because I relied on what the hadith scholars are upon, and on what is the stronger position among the hadith scholars: that the addition of a trustworthy narrator is not accepted absolutely, but only if the two trustworthy narrators are equal and one of them adds to the other; here it is said that the addition of a trustworthy narrator is accepted. Here, the matter is not so; because this hadith revolves, as I recall, around a narrator named 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Husayn, and upon him the paths revolved. All the paths came from him with his authentic chain to Ibn 'Abbas in this hadith with the second wording: . Sa'id ibn Mansur was unique, unlike these memorizers who narrated the hadith—I now remember something I missed—from the path of Hisham from 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Husayn. So Sa'id ibn Mansur was unique with this addition from Hisham, and Hisham is also one of the memorizers. So I was reassured by my judgment, and I thought that the statement of Ibn Taymiyyah was a statement without precise investigation; he pronounced weakness without explaining the reason. It may be confusing for a student of knowledge when he finds this hadith in "Sahih Muslim," and yet Ibn Taymiyyah says: it is a weak hadith or its chain is weak. But when the detail of the reason for the weakness is known, the confusion in his mind disappears. As it is said: "When the reason is known, the wonder ceases." So the authenticity of the hadith: . This is an explanation of the weakness of this addition in terms of its chain.
Then another thing comes, which is called by the hadith scholars "critique of the chain," and is called by the Europeans—regrettably—who benefited from our knowledge more than many of our own people and our kin, because they knew the value of this knowledge, until some of their disbelievers explicitly stated that the Islamic community was unique in this virtue: the existence of chains in all narrations reported from their Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), unlike all nations, old and new. And so some of them began to study this science. They coined a new term with a new meaning that does not contradict the old term. The old term says: critique of the chain and critique of the text. They said: internal critique or external critique. So external critique is the chain, and internal critique is the text. So I say now, after we have critiqued the chain of this hadith, which is external critique, we now return to explaining that there is internal critique in the text; that is, even if the chain of this hadith were authentic, the external critique would turn into internal critique. The critique would turn from critique of the chain, because there is no critique in it, to critique of the text, because it contains denunciation and anomaly, if we compare this text with the rest of the hadiths reported from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). It is not hidden from anyone that the difference between these two wordings is very clear: ; that is, others. The ruqyah comes from them, and is poured upon others. This is the meaning of , ; that is, they do not seek ruqyah from others. So there is a clear difference between the meaning of the two wordings. If we want to reflect on the meaning of the first wording, we find it differs and conflicts with his Sunnah (peace and blessings be upon him), both verbal and practical. You know that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to perform ruqyah, and specifically used to perform ruqyah on his sons al-Hasan and al-Husayn. He would say to them when he saw them, placing his hands on their heads: . So how can it be correct—in this state—and this is an example—that the Messenger should say in describing the seventy thousand that they do not perform ruqyah on others? This is a repugnant and rejected meaning due to the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) persistence in performing ruqyah on others. Is he not one of the seventy thousand? This is illogical and not in accordance with the Shari'ah. This is his action.
And upon you be peace and Allah's mercy and blessings.
As for his statement; it is what Imam Muslim narrated in his "Sahih" from the hadith of Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said—and he was asked about a ruqyah that the companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) were exchanging at that time—so he said: . So here there is a command that a Muslim should perform ruqyah on his brother with a prescribed ruqyah, so that his brother may benefit from it. How can it be among the attributes of the seventy thousand that they do not perform ruqyah on others? So it is established that this addition is an anomalous addition in both chain and text. And thus the difference appears between an accepted addition of a trustworthy narrator and an anomalous hadith which is not accepted.
In summary, I say: The addition of a trustworthy narrator is accepted when one is like the other in terms of trustworthiness. If one of two narrators who are equal in trustworthiness and integrity adds to the report of the other, his addition is accepted. However, if one of them is more memorizing than the other, and the other is less memorizing than the first, then the addition is rejected; because he added to the report of the trustworthy narrator, and the assumption is that the trustworthy, memorizing narrator who is more precise should be more memorizing than the one who is less memorizing and precise. If we were to reverse the issue and say that the addition of a trustworthy narrator is accepted absolutely, we would then be forced to disparage the one who was more memorizing. And even more so, as is said, we would be forced to declare a group of memorizers who narrated the hadith without this addition to be in error, while that trustworthy narrator narrated it uniquely with the addition. Here, there is no choice but to weaken or declare in error one of the two groups: either we weaken and declare in error the individual trustworthy narrator who added to the group, or we trust these people and attribute to them precision and memorization, as is their status and description, and declare the single trustworthy narrator in error. If the matter revolves between two harms—and this is a principle of jurisprudence that has no relation to hadith, but it also benefits us in the science of hadith—if the matter revolves between two harms and the Muslim must fall into one of them, then he chooses the lesser of the two evils. The lesser evil is to weaken and declare in error the trustworthy narrator, rather than to weaken the more trustworthy or the one with more memorization. This is the summary of what we mentioned.