Breaking News: Ṣaḥīḥ Narrators Were Still Human”

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Not a single Muslim scholar throughout classical history held that every ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth is necessarily certain or definitive (qaṭʿī).

Rather, what is meant by calling a report ṣaḥīḥ is that, based on the available transmission and isnād, it appears to be authentic. This is a judgment based on the outward evidence. It does not necessarily mean that we have certainty that the Prophet ﷺ actually said it. What we believe to be authentic may in reality be inauthentic, and what we believe to be weak may in reality be authentic.

As al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿIrāqī, the teacher of Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī and one of the major scholars of ḥadīth, states in his Alfiyyah:

وَبِالصَّحِيحِ وَالضَّعِيفِ قَصَدُوا

فِي ظَاهِرٍ لَا القَطْعَ وَالمُعْتَمَدِ

“By ṣaḥīḥ (sound) and ḍaʿīf (weak), they meant what appears to be so, not absolute certainty or what is definitively established.”

In other words, the classifications of ṣaḥīḥ and ḍaʿīf refer to the apparent/outward judgment based on the available evidence, not to absolute certainty. Because a trustworthy narrator can still make mistakes or forget. And there are countless other ways in which an unintentional mistake can occur.

That is why you will find many classical scholars openly criticizing ḥadīths in al-Bukhārī and Muslim.

For example, you have al-Dāraqutnī and his book al-Ilzāmāt wa-l-Tatabbuʿ, in which he criticized numerous ḥadīths in al-Bukhārī on the basis of their isnāds—roughly 200 reports without counting repetitions of the same ḥadīth (he showed that the chains of transmission of these hadiths do not meet the conditions that each scholar himself established for accepting a hadith as authentic and many other scholars responded to him).

Another example is Imām al-Ghassānī al-Jayyānī. He authored two works, one concerning al-Bukhārī and another concerning Muslim, entitled al-Tanbīh ʿalā al-Awhām al-Wāqiʿah fī Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim and al-Tanbīh ʿalā al-Awhām al-Wāqiʿah fī Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, in which he openly identified and criticized Isnāds (chains of transmission), errors in the names and identities of narrators, missing or incorrectly inserted narrators, mistakes in connecting or disconnecting chains, incorrect attribution of reports, errors made by transmitters when transmitting the books, differences between transmitted versions of the Ṣaḥīḥs. That does not establish that the entire Ṣaḥīḥ is unreliable. It establishes that the transmission of individual reports and chains was not immune from human error & some of the errors he identified are potentially authenticity-threatening.

And you will also find countless classical scholars who refused to accept ṣaḥīḥ narrations in Bukhārī, Muslim, and other ṣaḥīḥ hadith collections for various reasons, such as believing that they contradict the Qur’an, contradict established reality, or simply make no sense at all.

For example, there is a famous sahih narration that a Jewish man from Banū Zurayq called Labīd bewitched the Prophet.

What did the distinguished classical scholar Abū Bakr al-Jaṣṣāṣ al-Rāzī al-Ḥanafī say in Aḥkām al-Qurʾān? He has a lengthy discussion rejecting this hadith citing Qur'anic evidence against it, briefly he said: “That this hadith was fabricated by the heretics (al-mulḥidūn). The heretics fabricated it and put it into Bukhārī and Muslim; unfortunately, the trick worked on al-Bukhārī and Muslim, so they accepted this hadith. That is the meaning of what he said. They fabricated it to make the ignorant masses confused, so that they would mix up the miracles of the prophets with the magic of sorcerers, and so on. God forbid that such a contemptible Jewish sorcerer could have power over the Messenger of God. That is absolutely impossible, of course“.

Another example the famous hadith; “My ummah will split into 73 sects, all of them will be in the Fire except one.” Ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī, one of the greatest classical scholars, refused to accept this narration. He strongly rejected it as nonsensical and questioned the authenticity of its isnād, despite the narration being accepted as authentic by many other hadith scholars.

A third example is the hadith stating that Adam was sixty cubits tall and that creation continued to decrease in stature afterward: Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, one of the greatest classical hadith scholars, discussed this narration and pointed out the apparent problem it raises: it seems difficult to reconcile with established reality, since we can see the remains of the dwellings of earlier peoples, and they are not built on a scale that would correspond to people who were sixty cubits tall. So how could the people of the past have been that enormous?

Also, Ibn Ḥajar rejected the famous hadith in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim that says: “People from my ummah will come with sins like mountains, then Allah will forgive them and place them upon the Jews and Christians.” and said that this clearly contradicts the Qur’an, which states: “And that there is not for man except what he strives for.” (Qur’an 53:39) & “Every person is held in pledge for what he has earned.” (Qur’an 52:21)

Al-Bayhaqī and al-Dhahabī – both are great classical scholars also rejected it on the basis of problems with its isnād despite being in Muslim.

So, if you have been misled by modern sheikhs into thinking that anyone who criticizes a hadith classified as sahih is a kafir, you need to wake up. Anyone can criticize a hadith, provided that they do so based on a sound methodology rather than personal whims.

\- Contradiction with the Qur’an: rejected.

\- Contradiction with established reality: rejected, but only after independently establishing that Muhammad is genuinely a prophet and therefore would not say something that contradicts established reality.

\- Problems in the isnad or sound historical criticism: these can also provide grounds for rejecting a narration.

There is no rule that says you must either accept all narrations or reject all narrations. That is a false dichotomy. The issue is whether the acceptance or rejection is based on sound, objective methodological criteria rather than personal preference or arbitrary whims.

Al-Razi, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, al-Daraqutni, al-Bayhaqi, Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi, and many others were not shy Muslims trying to beautify Islam in the eyes of modern secularists.

So when a modern Muslim criticizes the narration about Aisha’s age, for example, he is not doing anything wrong or anything that makes him a kafir. This is simply the thinking of modern Salafi fundamentalists who do not want to think independently and instead follow others blindly like cattle.