If one of the narrators in the chain is not described by any of the imams as either rejected or approved, and it is then found that he authenticated a hadith, does this indicate that he is trustworthy in his view?

The questioner : If one of the narrators in the chain is not described by the imams as either rejected or approved, and it is then found that one of the imams authenticated his hadith, does this indicate that he is trustworthy in his view, or should it be said that perhaps he authenticated the hadith based on another route or a corroborating narration that he did not mention, while he himself is weak in his view? This is a possible scenario, and if a possibility arises, the argument for his being trustworthy is invalidated.

The Shaykh : This is the correct answer, except with regard to specific imams whom we attest to as being proficient in this science. Their authentication leads to at least one of two things: either he authenticated the hadith for its own sake, or he authenticated it due to corroborating narrations and considerations he had. Thus, trust is established by explicit statement in both these possibilities, but this does not apply to every authenticator among the scholars of hadith. Is this exception clear?

The questioner : Yes, very well.

The Shaykh : However, this trust is unsettled if we wish to use it to approve the narrator who was described in the question as one whom no one has approved, but whose hadith was authenticated by an imam whose authentication is now considered valid. In that case, we stop at the authentication of the hadith; we trust the hadith, but we do not trust the approval of the narrator of this hadith, because it is possible that he did not approve him for his own sake, but for the sake of something else.