Is it valid for some of the brothers among the students of knowledge to deny the rule that states (if a report comes through a mursal chain with a sound isnad, and a connected chain with a weakness that is compensated for, then the

The questioner : The Shaykh said: As is known about some of the hadith scholars: if a hadith comes through a mursal chain with a sound isnad, and a connected chain with a weakness that is compensated for, the hadith becomes hasan thereby. Some of the brothers have denied this rule. What is your opinion? That is, some of the brothers did not accept this rule and said: This rule is not accepted.

The Shaykh : What is his argument?

The questioner : He says that he does not find evidence for it; because in some of what is transmitted, it is stated that some of the hadith scholars do not act upon this rule.

The Shaykh : No problem, some of the hadith scholars act upon it and others do not.

The questioner : He says: So what is the evidence for the validity of this rule?

The Shaykh : The evidence is: , and the evidence is: the testimony of two women is equal to the testimony of one man, and therefore the poet said:
Do not fight my heart with your two eyes, for two weak ones overcome a strong one.

The questioner : No, he says: the mursal is missing a narrator, and he says: the weak one that is compensated for is connected, so he says: how can the connected support the disconnected? Because...

The Shaykh : This is from the group who are not permitted to exercise ijtihad; it is not permissible for him to authenticate or weaken. How, my brother, when the compilers differ, does your soul find peace in the authenticity of the report?
First: regarding this example, many of the great scholars hold the view of authenticating the mursal hadith on its own. I think you know this, meaning Imam Malik, Imam Abu Hanifa, and Imam Ahmad—in a narration from him—they argue with the mursal hadith on its own, without any support from a connected chain.
Of course, we do not adopt this. We say what is the stronger position among the hadith scholars, and what the scientific reality bears witness to: that the mursal hadith should not be used as evidence, as long as we do not know the intermediary between it and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him); is it the Companion alone, or a Companion and a Successor? Therefore, in what you transmitted from the man—may Allah, if the transmission is accurate—some books of terminology, such as al-Bayquniyyah, for example, state that the definition of mursal is:
That from which the Companion has dropped.
This definition is incorrect. If this definition were correct, every mursal would be authentic; because the statement "that from which the Companion has dropped"—the dropping of the Companion does not defect the hadith; the unknownness of the Companion does not defect the hadith, whether he is named by a name we do not know among the Companions, or he is not named, as it comes in many hadiths in Musnad Ahmad and others: "A man from the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) narrated to me." In this case, the hadith is authentic; why? Because all the Companions are trustworthy according to the people of the Sunnah, so it is the same for us whether he is named or not. Likewise, it is the same for us whether he is mentioned or not at all, and this is the mursal hadith according to al-Bayquni, but this is incorrect.
The mursal is: the statement of a Successor: "The Messenger of Allah said." There is a very big difference between the definition in al-Bayquniyyah and this definition adopted by the meticulous hadith scholars. The mursal hadith is: the statement of a narrator or a Successor: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said." It is not what is missing the name of the Companion. No, what is the difference?
The statement of a Successor: "The Messenger of Allah said" may imply that the one who dropped is the Companion, and on this possibility the hadith would be authentic. It may also imply that the one who dropped is an extra Companion and a Successor. It may imply that an extra Successor of a Successor dropped, and so on. As al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him)—who is one of the people of tracking and induction—said, he found in some mursal reports that the Companion, the Successor, and the Successor of the Successor dropped, four or five people in succession. Therefore, the mursal cannot correctly be said to be: the statement of a Successor: "The Messenger of Allah said." Rather, it is: the statement of a Successor: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said." So we do not assume that the one who dropped is the Companion as a possibility, but it is also possible that the drop is more and more.
The point of all this is: some of the scholars whom we named earlier held the view of authenticating the mursal hadith. We, although we are not with them in this...
(May Allah have mercy on him) has a statement that I did not find from anyone else. He says: If it were permissible for us to argue with the statement of a Successor: "The Messenger of Allah said," on the basis of good opinion of him, that if there was anyone between him and the Messenger other than the Companion, he would have mentioned him—on the basis of good opinion. He says: If we follow this good opinion, it would reach our time, that so-and-so in the third century, in the fourth century, said: "The Messenger of Allah said." So on the basis of good opinion, we would say: If this scholar did not establish the hadith with him by the scientific method, what he says is: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said."
And thereby we invalidate the most important means by which the Muslims are distinguished from all the world in knowing the narration of the authentic. At that point, the isnad has no value if we rely on the statement of the narrator, whether he is a Successor, a Successor of a Successor, or below that, on the basis of what? Good opinion of people. So when the mursal hadith comes with a sound chain to its mursal narrator, we pause. This is what we accept; because it contains the possibility we mentioned earlier. But when the hadith comes with a chain through a path other than the previous path, other than the path of the mursal, this chain alone is weak, but weak and weak gives strength, and this is an observed matter.
Meaning, as you know, in some of the wills of some of the wise to their children when death approached him, he had ten children. He said to each of them: Bring a stick. He broke it. The second, the third, make it a bundle. They were not able to break it. So he gave them an example that if you are all in agreement, no one can transgress against you. But if each one goes alone, it is possible to break him and transgress against him. Breaking one stick is easy, but if one like it is added to it, it takes strength. If a third, fourth, and fifth are added to it, it increases in strength.
We say to thisThe student : for knowledge: Do you believe that a weak hadith is strengthened by the multiplicity of paths? What do you think he says or what do you know?

The questioner : He says: If the weakness is in a narrator and the paths gather, the hadith becomes authentic.

The Shaykh : How do you mean?

The questioner : I mean if there is a weak narrator in the chain and the paths multiply, but there is no disconnection in them, there is no disconnection, only the weakness of the narrators.

The Shaykh : No problem, does he say that a weak hadith is strengthened by the multiplicity of paths? I am not asking for the details.

The questioner : Yes, he says this.

The Shaykh : Okay, why does he say it? I am not saying: with what does he say it? Rather I am saying: why does he say that?

The questioner : He says: I have predecessors before me from the hadith scholars who say this.

The Shaykh : Sir, where did this conviction come from?

The questioner : From mutual support.

The Shaykh : Meaning he did not notice the meaning of mutual support. Here a second question comes to him: If a hadith comes from two connected paths with no disconnection in them, but each one is weak, is it strengthened in his view without requiring a third and fourth?

The questioner : It is strengthened.

The Shaykh : It is strengthened. Okay, what is the meaning he noticed, which is the same one noticed by the one who strengthens the mursal hadith with the connected hadith, meaning that this one is weak due to the mursal, and the other is weak due to poor memorization, both share in the weakness, so why does he say: that two chains whose cause is weakness of memorization, so this strengthens that, and he does not say that that mursal is not strengthened by what the other weak one is strengthened by?

The questioner : Because he says: here we know the cause in this chain, which is the weakness of the narrator whose weakness is compensated for, and the second, we did not know the Successor, and perhaps the weakness in it is very severe such that it is not supported by this. He says for example: perhaps there is between the Companion and the Successor a narrator of severe weakness that is not compensated for by that path, so how do you compensate for an ambiguous man who is not known?

The Shaykh : What is what is thrown into the soul, is it severe weakness or is it not severe weakness?

The questioner : In his opinion, O Shaykh?

The Shaykh : In the opinion of the mursal.

The questioner : For the mursal; he says in his opinion: Allah knows best, perhaps it is so and not so.

The Shaykh : Allah knows best. This is like saying: this weak narrator whom we relied upon to strengthen the other weak narrator may have erred in a way that does not provide support. I want to say that the door of denial is wide open, but scientific research suggests that a person takes what is most likely. Now, let us return to the scholars who argued with the mursal (a report missing the Companion link) hadith. What was their observation?

The questioner : Their observation was that a mursal is not mursal unless...

The Shaykh : No, their observation was that these scholars—meaning those who authenticated the mursal—would not have authenticated it if they had been convinced that the mursal narrator had taken it from someone of extreme weakness. But what was the case? It was more likely in their minds and thoughts that if this intermediary, whom we do not know, were of extreme weakness—may Allah protect them from that—would they narrate the hadith and attribute it to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him)? What settles the mind in this situation—while acknowledging that the possibility of the narrator being extremely weak is a real possibility—is that there is a counter-possibility that is more reassuring to the mind, which is that he is not of extreme weakness. Therefore, those who authenticated the mursal hadith did so. We should at least consider it a corroborating narration (shahid), not merely as something to be argued with. Anyone else?