the Noble Qur’an, and anything that contradicts the Noble Qur’an is invalid. The transmitters of reports are human beings who sometimes err and sometimes get it right, whereas the Qur’an is entirely free from error—every word of it is true and has reached us by mass, recurrent transmission. Accordingly, any hadith that conflicts with the Qur’an is ruled unsound, no matter who may have narrated it, because those narrators did not receive their reports directly from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ but through chains of transmission—“So-and-so told us from so-and-so, up to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ”—and such narrators can make mistakes. The Qur’an, however, is devoid of error. This hadith, therefore, is one that the scholars have rejected in Imam Muslim’s collection, and there is nothing strange about that: every human being, Muslim or otherwise, is liable to be right at times and wrong at times. For this reason we need not discuss the report any further; its weakness has already been made clear. Allah is the One who grants success.

1855 – Abu Sulayman Khalid ibn al-Walid (may Allah be pleased with him) said, “Nine swords broke in my hand on the day of Mu’tah, and nothing was left in my hand except a Yemeni blade.” Reported by al-Bukhari.

1856 – ‘Amr ibn al-‘Āṣ (may Allah be pleased with him) heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, “When a judge exercises ijtihād and reaches the correct verdict, he will receive two rewards; if he exercises ijtihād and is mistaken, he will receive one reward.” Agreed upon.