“As for the symbols that appear in some copies to denote a sound, fair, or weak ḥadith—namely, marks shaped like the heads of the letters Ṣād, Ḥāʾ, and Ḍād—one should place no confidence in them. Copyists have tampered with them so frequently that they can no longer be trusted, and the author only employed them in certain places and not in others, as I have seen in his own handwriting.”
- Moreover, al-Suyūṭī is well known for his leniency in declaring narrations sound or weak. A large number of the ḥadiths he graded as sound or fair in that work were rejected by the commentator al-Manāwī—hundreds of them, if not more. The collection also contains many fabricated reports, even though al-Suyūṭī stated in his introduction: “I have purged it of anything that is found only in the writings of a forger or a liar.”
I ran through the collection quickly and counted roughly one thousand such reports, give or take a little. I hope that Allah will enable me to review them carefully, subject them to rigorous verification, and publish the results for the public. It is astonishing that not a few of these narrations were themselves declared fabricated by al-Suyūṭī in works other than this one. All of this greatly weakens the degree of trust that can be placed in him. We ask Allah for protection.
Thereafter, by Allah’s grace, I divided al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr and its supplement—together titled al-Fatḥ al-Kabīr fī Ḍamm al-Ziyāda ilā al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr—into two separate volumes: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ and Ḍaʿīf al-Jāmiʿ. The latter contains 6,469 narrations, of which about 980 are fabricated. It has now been printed, just as the authenticated volume has, and all praise belongs to Allah Most High.