Have you ever weakened a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari, and did some hadith scholars or the early ones precede you in doing this?

The Shaykh : The praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomsoever He leaves to misguide, none can guide. I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. We begin tonight directly by receiving questions that may be available from some of our brothers, and we will answer them, if Allah wills, with what Allah has made easy for us. Then we will shorten the session as much as possible due to unforeseen circumstances. Although these are unforeseen, there is nothing in them that is disturbing. We are with you until ten-thirty, and at most until eleven. So rely on Allah and bring forth what you have. Please, go ahead.

The questioner : Our Shaykh, the question is: Have you ever weakened hadiths in al-Bukhari and compiled them in a book? And if that happened, did the scholars precede you in doing so? We ask for clarification, and may Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : Specify what the demonstrative "that" refers to, because your question includes two things: Have you ever weakened something from the hadiths of al-Bukhari, and did you compile a book on that? When you mentioned "did someone precede you in that," what do you mean? Precede you in weakening or in authoring?

The questioner : Both of them.

The Shaykh : The two are one; it is valid for him... in one word... As for whether I have previously weakened some of the hadiths of al-Bukhari, this is a fact that must be acknowledged and it is not permissible to deny it, for many reasons. The first is that all Muslims, without distinction between a scholar, a student, or an ignorant Muslim, all agree that no one is infallible after the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). And from this, it is also a self-evident result that any book that comes to the mind of a Muslim or whose name he hears, before he looks at its text, must be established in his mind that it must contain some error. This is because the prior belief is that infallibility among humans was not granted to anyone except the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). From this, it is narrated from Imam al-Shafi'i (may Allah be pleased with him) that he said: "Allah refused to complete anything except His Book."
This is a fact that does not accept discussion. This is first, as a principle. As for its application, we, and that is by the grace of Allah upon us and upon people, but most people do not know, and most people do not give thanks, Allah the Exalted has enabled us to study the science of hadith, its principles and branches, its critique and vindication, to the extent that, by the grace and mercy of Allah, we were able to distinguish the authentic hadith from the weak and the fabricated through our study of this science. Accordingly, we applied this study to some of the hadiths that appeared in Sahih al-Bukhari, and we found as a result of this study that there are some hadiths that do not reach the level of hasan, let alone the level of sahih, in Sahih al-Bukhari, let alone in Sahih Muslim.
This is my answer regarding what concerns me. As for what concerns others, which came in your question, namely whether anyone preceded you, I say, and praise be to Allah, I was preceded by many people who are more settled in this noble science than I am and know it better than I do, and who are very early, preceding me by about a thousand years, such as Imam al-Daraqutni and others. They criticized the two Sahihs in dozens of hadiths. As for me, I have not reached the point of criticizing ten hadiths.
This is because I was found in an era that does not allow me to devote myself to criticizing the hadiths of al-Bukhari and then the hadiths of Muslim. This is because we are in greater need of tracking the hadiths found in the four Sunans, let alone the Musnads and Mu'jams and the like, to clarify their authenticity from their weakness. Meanwhile, Imam al-Bukhari and Muslim have fulfilled the obligation of purifying the hadiths they included in the two Sahihs from hundreds of thousands of hadiths. This is a very, very great effort. Therefore, it is not of knowledge or wisdom in any way for me to direct myself to criticizing the two Sahihs and leave the hadiths found in the four Sunans and others, where it is not known which are authentic and which are weak. However, during scientific research, some hadiths in the two Sahihs or in one of them pass by me, and it becomes clear to me that there are some weak hadiths. But whoever is in doubt about what I have judged regarding some of the hadiths, let him return to Fath al-Bari, where he will find many, and very many, things that al-Hafiz Ahmad ibn Hajar al-Asqalani criticizes. He is rightly called the Amir al-Mu'minin in hadith, and I believe, and I think that everyone participating in this science agrees with me, that no woman has given birth to anyone like him after him. This Imam Ahmad ibn Hajar al-Asqalani clarifies, during his commentary, many errors in the hadiths of al-Bukhari. He sometimes prefers what was not in Sahih Muslim only, but also what came in some of the Sunans and some of the Musnads.
Then, my criticism of some of the hadiths found in Sahih al-Bukhari is sometimes for the entire hadith, meaning it is said that this hadith is weak. And sometimes the criticism is for a part of a hadith where the original hadith is authentic, but a part of it is not authentic. An example of the first type is the hadith of Ibn Abbas who said: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) married Maimunah while he was in the state of ihram." This hadith is not one of the hadiths that al-Bukhari narrated exclusively without his companion Muslim; rather, they shared and agreed on narrating the hadith in their two Sahihs. The reason for that is that the chain of narration to the narrator of this hadith, who is Abdullah ibn Abbas, is free from defect; it is a sahih chain with no room for criticizing any of its narrators. Meanwhile, there are other hadiths where there is room for criticism from one of the individuals in its chain. For example, among the men of al-Bukhari is a man named Fulayh ibn Sulayman. Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar describes him in his book al-Taqrib as "truthful but with poor memory." So, if he narrates a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari and he is unique in it, and there is no supporting chain for it or no corroborating narration, his hadith remains at the level of weak, which accepts strengthening by a supporting chain or a corroborating narration. So, the hadith of Maimunah and that the Messenger (peace be upon him) married her while he was in the state of ihram has no room for criticizing its chain from the perspective of one of its narrators, like Fulayh ibn Sulayman, for example. No, they are all trustworthy and established. Therefore, the critics of this hadith among the scholars who preceded us by centuries did not find a room to criticize this hadith except in its first narrator, who is Ibn Abbas, a noble Companion. They said that the error came from Ibn Abbas because he was young in age on one hand, and on the other hand, he contradicted in his narration the woman of the story, who is the wife of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), namely Maimunah. It is authentically reported from her that he (peace be upon him) married her while they were in a state of permissibility. So, this hadith has an error in its first narrator, who is Ibn Abbas, and thus the hadith is weak. And as you see, these are limited words: "married Maimunah while he was in the state of ihram"—four words: married, Maimunah, while he was, in the state of ihram. A hadith like this, and it may be longer than this, has other examples in Sahih al-Bukhari. The second type is where the original hadith is authentic, but one of its narrators made a mistake in that he inserted a phrase into its text that is not from the words of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Among these is the well-known hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) up to here the hadith is authentic and has many corroborating narrations. One of the narrators in Sahih al-Bukhari added: "So whoever among you is able to lengthen his seclusion, let him do so." Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani said, and Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah said, and his Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah said, and al-Hafiz al-Mundhiri said, and other scholars said: This addition is inserted and is not from the words of the Messenger (peace be upon him), but rather it is from the words of Abu Hurayrah. So, the answer is complete up to now regarding the first part, meaning I criticized some of the hadiths and was preceded by many Imams. As for whether I authored a book or others authored one, I did not author one. As for others, they did author, but we do not know today a book on this subject. This is the answer to what you asked. Please, go ahead.