What is the ruling on one who rejects ahad hadiths?

The questioner : What is the ruling on those who reject ahad hadiths despite the proof being established against them? Are they open sinners, misguided, or disbelievers?

The Shaykh : There is no doubt that any Muslim who adopts a school of thought, a methodology, a path, or a way that our righteous predecessors—the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), those who followed them, and those who followed the followers—did not follow, is living in clear misguidance. This misguidance, in which we have no doubt that he is immersed from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, may lead him to the paths of disbelief and exiting the religion. This is because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said in the clear text of the Noble Qur'an: Therefore, those who philosophize with the philosophy of rejecting ahad hadiths are contradicting the path of the believers. We have mentioned more than once that the guidance of the righteous predecessors and their conveying of the call of Islam until it encompassed a large part of the world was achieved through the transmission of ahad and individual reports of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). The most famous of this, as is known in the Prophetic biography and Islamic history, is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to send a single person to call a single tribe to enter Islam, commanding them to declare the oneness of Allah, having no partner with Him, and if they responded to him, to pray, to fast, to give zakah, and so on. How did Islam spread? Through these individuals. And so the spread of Islam continued until it reached lands in the middle of the seas, such as Australia and the like, because a Muslim would travel for trade, settle in a country he had not visited before, and tell them about Islam, and people would enter the religion of Allah in groups based on the report of a single person. So these people who belittle the report of a single person and say that a single report does not establish a creed are contradicting the path of the believers, and indeed the path of the master of the believers, who sent Mu'adh, sent Ali, sent Abu Musa al-Ash'ari as callers to Islam to Yemen, and Dhahyah al-Kalbi to the lands of Syria and the Romans, and so on. These early callers are known in Islamic history as individuals. So how can it be said that ahad hadiths do not establish a creed? We have, praise be to Allah, two messages that address this issue with a scientific, rational, and legal treatment—rational, not loose, but a legal reason derived from the Book and the Sunnah. And whatever deviates from the Book and the Sunnah, they were right when they said it is not reason, because Allah (Mighty and Majestic), when He mentioned the disbelievers while they were in the torment of the Fire, related that they said: So who is the person of reason? It is the one who subjects his reason to the Shari'ah, because this reason, as we said, absolute reason is distributed among humans and is not known or limited to a specific person. If it were said that the reason of the infallible Messenger is the standard, that would be a reference point, but the lost, loose reason of humans that has no limits is part of complete misguidance when they adopt what their pure reason, devoid of following the Book and the Sunnah, leads them to say that ahad hadiths do not establish a creed. And I give you an example that contains two points and shows how these people who subjected their reason to the texts of their Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) are crumbling. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said in al-Bukhari and Muslim: This is an ahad hadith that is acted upon in rulings but not in creed. However, this hadith contains both; it contains a ruling and it contains a creed. The ruling is to seek refuge with Allah from the four things. The creed is the punishment of the grave, and the Dajjal in the end times. How can he seek refuge with something he does not believe in? He cannot. So he is in a state of hesitation, and whichever way he leans, he is in misguidance. If he acts on the hadith because it contains a legal ruling, and this is his duty, but he does not act on what it contains of creed, which is belief in the punishment of the grave and the Dajjal in the end times, then in the course of applying this ruling, he is contradicting his creed, and this is clear misguidance.