the position of the majority, namely, that when the Muslim community receives a report with affirmation and acts upon it, that reception itself constitutes consensus, and the community cannot unanimously agree upon misguidance. The same applies when they concur on the implication of a general text, an unrestricted statement, the literal sense of a word, or the conclusion of an analogy: their agreement precludes error, even though any single individual, if left to examine the matter alone, would not be immune from mistake. Infallibility, then, attaches to the collective consensus, just as with a mutawātir report: error or deliberate falsehood is conceivable for each transmitter taken separately, but impossible for the group as a whole. Likewise, the Ummah is protected from error both in what it transmits and in the judgments it reaches.

He added: Solitary reports (āḥād) in this field may amount to plausible knowledge when their conditions are met; when their strength increases they yield certainty, and when they are undermined they sink to mere delusions and corrupt imaginings.

He also said: Know that the bulk of the narrations recorded by al-Bukhārī and Muslim fall under this very category, as Shaykh Abū ʿAmr—and scholars before him such as the ḥadīth master Abū Ṭāhir al-Salafī—have pointed out. Whatever the hadith specialists receive with acceptance and confirmation produces knowledge and leads to certainty. The views of others—whether speculative theologians or uṣūl scholars—carry no weight here, for consensus in every religious matter is judged by the experts in that particular field, not by outsiders. Just as consensus on legal rulings is established solely by jurists, not by theologians, grammarians, or physicians, so too consensus on the authenticity or falsity of a ḥadīth is established only by those versed in ḥadīth, its transmission routes, and its hidden defects. These are the hadith scholars who know their Prophet’s circumstances, painstakingly preserve his words and deeds, and care for them far more diligently than the blind imitators care for the statements of their own authorities.