by the two Shaykhs, al-Bukhārī and Muslim.1

For this reason Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah said, in a section of his Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā (18/51):

“Just as the statement of someone who does not know the evidences for legal rulings carries no weight, likewise the statement of one who does not know the methods by which the authenticity of a ḥadīth is determined carries no weight. Everyone who is not a scholar must instead follow the consensus of the scholars.”

I say: It is well known to the scholars that one textual basis for this consensus is the Almighty’s words: “So ask the people of remembrance if you do not know” (Q 16:43). Therefore, whoever is not learned in ḥadīth to the extent that he can distinguish the sound from the weak is not permitted to cite a report as proof until he has asked those who are versed in it—this is the explicit purport of the verse. All the more impermissible is it for him, out of ignorance, to declare a report sound or weak, as al-Ghazālī and others among the would-be jurists of our own day have done.

The point is that such people must not stubbornly reject an entire type of report, namely the category known to the scholars as ḥasan (fair) or ṣaḥīḥ li-ghayrihi (sound by virtue of corroboration), such as this sixth ḥadīth and others. One of the established principles of the ḥadīth masters is that a weak report can be strengthened by numerous independent chains, taking a cue from the Almighty’s words regarding a woman’s testimony: “If one of them errs, the other will remind her” (Q 2:282).

The practical application of this principle can be undertaken only by the few who have long specialized in this noble science.