and reliability, yet the report itself may still be accepted, because it is corroborated by evidence from the Quran and the Sunnah or by overarching principles of the Sharia.

Thus, the benefit of the science of hadith terminology is to distinguish between what must be accepted and what must be rejected of the hadith corpus. This is crucial in its own right, for all legal rulings rest upon whether evidence is established or not, and upon whether that evidence is sound or weak.