Principle Six: The statement “its transmitters are the transmitters of the Ṣaḥīḥ” is not, in itself, an authentication of the ḥadith.

From Principle One you already know the definition of a sound ḥadith and that one of its conditions is freedom from hidden defects such as shudhūdh (anomaly), iḍṭirāb (irregularity), and tadlīs (concealment). Accordingly, when some ḥadith critics say of a report, “its transmitters are the transmitters of the Ṣaḥīḥ,” or, “its transmitters are trustworthy,” and the like, that is not the same as saying, “its chain is sound.” Declaring a chain sound affirms that every requirement of authenticity has been met, including freedom from defects; the other expression affirms only a single requirement—the uprightness and reliability of the narrators—and, as is obvious, that alone does not establish authenticity.

A further point: even if a ḥadith about which this remark is made happens to be free of those defects, it can still be unsound. The chain may contain a narrator who does figure in the Ṣaḥīḥ, yet the compiler did not rely on him; rather, he cited him only as supporting evidence or in combination with another transmitter because of his weak memory. Alternatively, the chain may include someone whose reliability was endorsed solely by Ibn Ḥibbān. Researchers often hint at this by saying, “its transmitters have been declared reliable,” signalling that the endorsement of some of them is shaky. All of this prevents one from inferring authenticity from the phrase in question.

The author appears not to have noticed any of this, and therefore he proceeded to declare many ḥadiths sound merely because some scholars had used that phrase about them. Throughout the commentary we shall draw attention to such cases.

I later expanded on this principle in the introduction to my Ṣaḥīḥ al-Targhīb wa’l-Tarhīb, pp. 39–46; consult it, for it is important.