The Evidentiary Status of a Single-Chain Report

The Shaykh : We all know that when Allah, Mighty and Majestic, sent the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as a bringer of good news and a warner, and said to him: , his (peace and blessings be upon him) conveying of his message to the people was sometimes in person, when he would attend their gatherings and assemblies and address them directly. Sometimes he would send a messenger on his behalf to call the polytheists to follow the call of the noble Prophet. And sometimes he would send a written letter, as is well known from the biography, to Heraclius, the King of the Romans, to Kisra, the King of Persia, to the Muqawqis, and to others, to the rulers of the Arabs, as is detailed in the books of the Prophetic biography. Among these, he sent Mu'adh ibn Jabal, Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, and Ali ibn Abi Talib to Yemen, and Dhuhayy al-Kalbi to the Romans, and so on. These were individuals, and their reports do not constitute a definitive report because they are individuals. Mu'adh was in one place, Abu Musa in another, and Ali in another. The time may also differ, just as the place differed. There is a hadith in the two Sahihs, which they narrated with a sound chain from Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) sent Mu'adh to Yemen, he said to him: . Which Muslim doubts that this testimony is the first foundation of Islam, that is, the first creed upon which faith in Allah, His angels, His books, and His messengers is built? So Mu'adh (may Allah be pleased with him) went alone as a conveyor and caller, calling the Muslims, may Allah pardon them, and calling the polytheists to believe in the religion of Islam. Do you see whether the argument was established by Mu'adh ibn Jabal when he called them to Islam and told them that the Messenger commands you to pray five prayers in every day and night, and that this prayer is two units and that one is three, and the rest are four, four, and so on, of the details known to us, praise be to Allah? And he commanded them to give zakah and mentioned to them the details of the rulings of zakah: what concerns silver, what concerns gold, what concerns fruits, what concerns vegetables, what concerns cattle and camels, and so on. Was the argument of Islam established against those polytheists by Mu'adh alone? According to the methodology of the Tahrir Party, unfortunately, no, the argument was not established, because he is an individual, and as they say, it is possible for them to lie. And if we say that lying is far from them, at the very least it can be said that it is possible for them to make a mistake or forget. So they came up with a philosophy that a sound hadith cannot be used to derive an Islamic creed. So when the Yemenis were called to Islam by Mu'adh, and without doubt the first thing he called them to was the creed, if the argument of Allah was not established against the Yemenis, among whom were polytheists, Christians, and Zoroastrians, then the argument of Allah was not established against them regarding creeds. As for rulings, the Tahrir Party, like the general Muslims, says: Yes, single-chain reports establish legal rulings. But Islamic creeds are not established by single-chain reports.