What is your opinion of one who says, "The hadiths changed between the tongues of the narrators"?
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The questioner : My teacher, it is said that the hadiths changed between the tongues of the narrators. What is your opinion?
The Shaykh : In my opinion, this statement is, as they say, "a word of truth intended to convey falsehood"
The questioner : Yes
The Shaykh : We do not believe in the principle used by the Zionists, or rather by all the Jews, and then the infection spread to many Islamic preachers. What is the principle? "The end justifies the means"
The questioner : Yes
The Shaykh : I think you agree with us that this principle is not Islamic.
The questioner : Yes
The Shaykh : Therefore, in our defense of the hadith, we do not adopt the application of this disbelieving principle; rather, we acknowledge reality and also answer this reality with the truth. I said at the beginning of my answer to this question that it is "a word of truth intended to convey falsehood". There is no doubt that this change occurred, and there is no way to deny it, especially for one who is an expert in the science of hadith, and more specifically, for one who is an expert not just in the scientific rules whose domain is the terminology of hadith, but in applying this terminology to the reality of the hadiths, which number in the thousands upon thousands. In my belief, this question meets exactly with one of the conditions or requirements established for the authentic hadith, where they said in its definition: "What is narrated by a just, precise person from his like, from his like, to its end, provided it is not anomalous or defective" — may Allah reward you — so the anomalous hadith means, like the defective hadith, that an error occurred in it. And this error is sometimes in the chain of narration and sometimes in the text. Here the question applies. I said this is a word of truth intended to convey falsehood, because the occurrence of such things does not harm the original hadith or its authority. Therefore, Allah the Exalted and Majestic provided for this Ummah scholars who established rules and conditions for the science of hadith; without them, the Sunnah would have suffered what happened to the two revealed books, the Torah and the Gospel. But Allah the Exalted and Majestic provided for this Ummah those who established these controls and rules to distinguish the flaws that occurred in these narrations in their texts, let alone their chains of narration. Those are the scholars of hadith. And it is authentic from some of the Imams, and I think it is Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak, that the chain of narration is from "the religion. The chain of narration is from the religion, and without the chain of narration, whoever wished would say whatever he wished", just as the Jews and Christians did exactly. So it does not harm the hadith that some errors occurred in it, because the means that help the scholar to know these errors are preserved and accessible, like any science in the world, like any science in the world.
Therefore, the hadith, in terms of its text, is divided into authentic, good, weak, and fabricated. Then the authentic is divided into categories, and the good is likewise, and so on. And all of this is only in the way of extracting this change that occurred in some of the hadiths. Therefore, there is no harm to this hadith from what occurred. I wish that all the news circulated by all the peoples, let alone the Islamic peoples, the other peoples, had the controls and rules that help them to know the authentic from the weak among them. But this is a speciality by which Allah distinguished the Ummah of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). And this is what some Orientalists who studied Islam acknowledged, and who had some fairness and were far from the deep-seated hatred that prevails over most Orientalists. They had no choice but to acknowledge that the science of hadith and the science of the chain of narration are a speciality by which the Muhammadan Ummah is unique. And from here, there is no harm in this question and this answer. Yes.
The questioner : Yes, my Shaykh.
The Shaykh : In my opinion, this statement is, as they say, "a word of truth intended to convey falsehood"
The questioner : Yes
The Shaykh : We do not believe in the principle used by the Zionists, or rather by all the Jews, and then the infection spread to many Islamic preachers. What is the principle? "The end justifies the means"
The questioner : Yes
The Shaykh : I think you agree with us that this principle is not Islamic.
The questioner : Yes
The Shaykh : Therefore, in our defense of the hadith, we do not adopt the application of this disbelieving principle; rather, we acknowledge reality and also answer this reality with the truth. I said at the beginning of my answer to this question that it is "a word of truth intended to convey falsehood". There is no doubt that this change occurred, and there is no way to deny it, especially for one who is an expert in the science of hadith, and more specifically, for one who is an expert not just in the scientific rules whose domain is the terminology of hadith, but in applying this terminology to the reality of the hadiths, which number in the thousands upon thousands. In my belief, this question meets exactly with one of the conditions or requirements established for the authentic hadith, where they said in its definition: "What is narrated by a just, precise person from his like, from his like, to its end, provided it is not anomalous or defective" — may Allah reward you — so the anomalous hadith means, like the defective hadith, that an error occurred in it. And this error is sometimes in the chain of narration and sometimes in the text. Here the question applies. I said this is a word of truth intended to convey falsehood, because the occurrence of such things does not harm the original hadith or its authority. Therefore, Allah the Exalted and Majestic provided for this Ummah scholars who established rules and conditions for the science of hadith; without them, the Sunnah would have suffered what happened to the two revealed books, the Torah and the Gospel. But Allah the Exalted and Majestic provided for this Ummah those who established these controls and rules to distinguish the flaws that occurred in these narrations in their texts, let alone their chains of narration. Those are the scholars of hadith. And it is authentic from some of the Imams, and I think it is Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak, that the chain of narration is from "the religion. The chain of narration is from the religion, and without the chain of narration, whoever wished would say whatever he wished", just as the Jews and Christians did exactly. So it does not harm the hadith that some errors occurred in it, because the means that help the scholar to know these errors are preserved and accessible, like any science in the world, like any science in the world.
Therefore, the hadith, in terms of its text, is divided into authentic, good, weak, and fabricated. Then the authentic is divided into categories, and the good is likewise, and so on. And all of this is only in the way of extracting this change that occurred in some of the hadiths. Therefore, there is no harm to this hadith from what occurred. I wish that all the news circulated by all the peoples, let alone the Islamic peoples, the other peoples, had the controls and rules that help them to know the authentic from the weak among them. But this is a speciality by which Allah distinguished the Ummah of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). And this is what some Orientalists who studied Islam acknowledged, and who had some fairness and were far from the deep-seated hatred that prevails over most Orientalists. They had no choice but to acknowledge that the science of hadith and the science of the chain of narration are a speciality by which the Muhammadan Ummah is unique. And from here, there is no harm in this question and this answer. Yes.
The questioner : Yes, my Shaykh.