—there is no doubt that among many Muslims there exists a measure of injustice, ignorance, innovation, and moral corruption known only to Him who encompasses all things in knowledge. Yet every evil that can be found in some Muslims is found in non-Muslims in even greater measure, and every good that may appear among others is higher and more abundant among them; the same applies to the people of hadith when compared with anyone else.
He then went on to spell this out in detail, showing the special standing of the people of hadith over all other sects. Consult it, for you will not find its like anywhere else—may Allah have mercy on him.
The point, then, is that the transmission of weak reports by certain hadith scholars is one of the things their opponents criticize, even though those very opponents do things far worse, as Shaykh al-Islam made clear in the passage to which we referred a moment ago.
One of the most famous figures in our age to seize upon this issue and use it as a pretext for ridiculing and condemning them is Shaykh al-Kawthari, notorious for his intense hostility toward the Ahl al-Sunnah and the people of hadith, whom he derides as “hashwiyyah” and “anthropomorphists.” In this he is unjust and slanderous, although—to be fair—he does occasionally find in what some of them transmit of hadiths and reports something he can use to bolster his calumny, such as the report related in explanation of the Almighty’s words, “It may be that your Lord will raise you to a Praiseworthy Station” (17:79), which states: “He will seat me on the Throne.”
The compiler (pp. 74–75) narrated it from Ibn Masʿūd as a marfūʿ report and deemed it very weak, saying: “Its report through al-Aḥmar is mursal, and al-Aḥmar is a discarded narrator.” He also recorded it (p. 99) from Ibn ʿAbbās as a mawqūf report, remarking: “Its isnād is worthless; ʿAmr ibn Mudrik al-Rāzī is discarded. This wording is well known from Mujāhid, and it is also narrated as marfūʿ, but it is baseless.”
I traced both reports in al-Daʿīfa, no. 871.
He likewise said, in the biography of Muḥammad ibn Muṣʿab al-ʿĀbid, as will follow: “As for the claim that our Prophet will sit on the Throne, no authentic text establishes this. In this matter there is only a feeble hadith, and Mujāhid’s interpretation of the verse, as we have mentioned.”
I say: had the author—may Allah have mercy on him—stopped at this clear statement that it