Some who are concerned with hadith are not concerned with the fiqh of hadith; what is your advice regarding that?
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The questioner : There is another observation, which is that some of those who are interested in the science of hadith, or we can call it the craft, focus on the chains of narration and the narrators, but when it comes to explaining the hadith or understanding its meaning, you find weakness.
The Shaykh : What matters to them is not the fiqh.
The questioner : I do not know what your comment on that would be, because I notice among our youth, and we have tried in our college, the College of Usul al-Din, which has a department for the Sunnah, and praise be to Allah, there are a number of students of knowledge among them, and it is sufficient that among them...
The Shaykh : What Allah willed.
The questioner : But there are a number of students where you find a strong desire and readiness to trace the hadith to its sources and study the chains of narration, but they have no desire for the other. You find that in our subject of hadith and our subject of studying chains of narration, they get a hundred in the subject of studying chains of narration and sixty or sixty-five in the subject of hadith. So what is your comment on this?
The Shaykh : This is what makes us feel that the issue is not an issue of worship, but rather it is for showing off, because studying hadith is in reality a means and not an end. The end is to gain understanding of the religion, and the end of studying chains of narration is to know what is authentic from what is not authentic. If the Muslim knows this is authentic and this is not authentic, then the consequence is acting upon what is authentic and not acting upon what is not authentic. If the end of studying chains of narration is not this fruit, then it means that the intention is not sound, and we seek help from Allah.
The questioner : And this is countered, O our Shaykh, by another claim I heard from someone who says there is no need now to study hadith; we explain the authentic hadiths in al-Bukhari and Muslim that are established, and when we finish with them and understand them and act upon them, we will look for the rest of the hadiths.
The Shaykh : It is on two opposite extremes, on two opposite extremes.
The questioner : And the middle?
The Shaykh : The middle is continuing the work in, as the jurists say, both the transmission and the understanding, realizing both the transmission and the understanding. It is necessary to filter, and that is by distinguishing the authentic from the weak among the hadiths scattered in hundreds of hadith books, and then it is necessary to gain understanding of them.
The Shaykh : What matters to them is not the fiqh.
The questioner : I do not know what your comment on that would be, because I notice among our youth, and we have tried in our college, the College of Usul al-Din, which has a department for the Sunnah, and praise be to Allah, there are a number of students of knowledge among them, and it is sufficient that among them...
The Shaykh : What Allah willed.
The questioner : But there are a number of students where you find a strong desire and readiness to trace the hadith to its sources and study the chains of narration, but they have no desire for the other. You find that in our subject of hadith and our subject of studying chains of narration, they get a hundred in the subject of studying chains of narration and sixty or sixty-five in the subject of hadith. So what is your comment on this?
The Shaykh : This is what makes us feel that the issue is not an issue of worship, but rather it is for showing off, because studying hadith is in reality a means and not an end. The end is to gain understanding of the religion, and the end of studying chains of narration is to know what is authentic from what is not authentic. If the Muslim knows this is authentic and this is not authentic, then the consequence is acting upon what is authentic and not acting upon what is not authentic. If the end of studying chains of narration is not this fruit, then it means that the intention is not sound, and we seek help from Allah.
The questioner : And this is countered, O our Shaykh, by another claim I heard from someone who says there is no need now to study hadith; we explain the authentic hadiths in al-Bukhari and Muslim that are established, and when we finish with them and understand them and act upon them, we will look for the rest of the hadiths.
The Shaykh : It is on two opposite extremes, on two opposite extremes.
The questioner : And the middle?
The Shaykh : The middle is continuing the work in, as the jurists say, both the transmission and the understanding, realizing both the transmission and the understanding. It is necessary to filter, and that is by distinguishing the authentic from the weak among the hadiths scattered in hundreds of hadith books, and then it is necessary to gain understanding of them.
Source
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