Explaining Allah’s favor upon this Ummah in that He appointed for them men who preserve the Sunnah of their Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).

The Shaykh : Who are those who transmitted the Sunnah to us? The answer is clear, but I wish to take this as an occasion to explain that Allah (Mighty and Majestic), in order to fulfill the promise of the Noble Qur’an, namely His saying (Mighty and Majestic): In order to realize this divine preservation, which He bestowed upon His Muslim servants, He made available a group among the Muslims, namely the scholars of hadith, who began first and foremost by distinguishing the Companions from those who were not among them. There were thus compilations on the names of the Companions, for they were the first generation, the pioneers, who transmitted to us his explanation (peace be upon him) in its three categories from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Then the subject continued, and they transmitted to us the Tabi’un, who received the explanation. Let us now say “Sunnah” in place of “explanation,” referring to the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that they transmitted to us from the noble Companions. These scholars also focused on two matters. The first matter was distinguishing the Tabi’un and their followers until the writing of the knowledge of the Sunnah, or the knowledge of hadith, began in the books of the Sunnah. This is the first matter. As for the other matter, after they had established that the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) were upright, trustworthy, and preservers, they also focused on the second matter concerning the second generation, namely the Tabi’un. These Tabi’un are not on the same level as the Companions in that the default assumption for each individual among them is that he is upright and a precise, preserving scholar. In fact, some of them possessed this complete description, while others were below that in degrees and ranks. Here, the scholars of hadith distinguished not only the Tabi’i from the Companion, but also identified the trustworthy among these Tabi’un from those who were not trustworthy. This is what is known among the scholars of hadith as the science of al-jarh wa al-ta'dil (the critique and vindication of narrators).