Among the acts he lists as not nullifying ablution is his statement—made while enumerating such acts—“Eating camel meat. This is the view of the four Caliphs and many of the Companions and Successors, yet a sound hadith commands ablution after it.” He then cited that hadith through the chains of Jābir ibn Samurah and al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib, adding:
“Ibn Khuzaymah said, ‘I have seen no disagreement among the hadith scholars that this report is authentic in transmission, for its narrators are reliable.’ Al-Nawawī remarked, ‘This position is supported by the stronger proof, even though the majority hold the contrary view.’ End quote.
Yet one might ask, ‘How could the hadith of Jābir and al-Barāʾ have escaped the notice of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and the vast majority of Companions and Successors?!’”
I reply: Such a question is pointless once the hadith has been affirmed as authentic from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—even by the author himself. It may never be set aside, no matter how numerous or eminent those who oppose it, for a hadith of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ “stands on its own evidence, not on the practice of those who came after him,” as Imām al-Shāfiʿī stated in “Introduction, Principle 14.”
I am frankly astonished at the author’s remark. It is wholly at odds with the very aim for which he composed this book—“to unite Muslims upon the Qur’an and the Sunnah, to eliminate dispute, and to eradicate the innovation of partisan devotion to madhhabs,” as he declared in his Introduction. In fact, what he has said here amounts to practical support for the blind imitators who dismiss the Prophet’s ḥadiths on precisely such grounds in defense of their own imams.1