All praise to Allaah the Lord of the worlds, peace and blessings on the noblest of mankind. I testify that none is worthy of worship but Allaah and that Muhammad is His Messenger.

After this:

(Attention to the reader: This piece contains some Arabic transliterated terms that might not be understandable.)

I inadvertently watched, this morning, a video presentation by one of our brothers in Ilorin who is one of the leading figures in South West Nigeria vigorously chorusing the ‘heresies’ in Shaykh Aliyy Hasan Al-Halabee – rahmatullaah alahyi.

The readers would recall that simplysalafiyyah.com in the past days started a series (which my miskeen self was opportune to compile) on some principles Ash-Shaykh Aliyy Hasan Al-Halabee – rahimahullaah – was accused of propounding which courted him a label of being a mubtadi from some of the Senior Scholars of the Ummah and which some other Senior Scholars, even Senior-Senior, did (and do) not see as enough to so label him – may Allaah protect our scholars from all evil.

Our aim in the series was, and is, to see if those issues were really innovated things by Ash-Shaykh Aliyy Hasan Al-Halabee – rahimahullaah, or not. But so far, walhamdulillaah, it has been shown that Shaykh Hasan - rahimahullaah - was not the only one on the principles such as Futility of Compelling People to Accept Rulings of the Declaration of Someone as a Heretic otherwise known as Ilzaam, Youths Not Engrossing Themselves in Tabdee’, saying Whoever Does Not Declare A Mubtadi As A Mubtadi Is A Mubtadi, Whoever Is Not With Us Is Against Us, None Absoluteness of Acceptance of Khabar Thiqah, and others.

Readers can see the series again. Click here to see it.

We paused the series for certain reasons one of which was to see if the tension was going down most especially in the area of the wanton tabdee’ of the teachers of Sunnah, in Yoruba land, that started in the penultimate week. Palpably, we saw that it indeed reduced. Alhamduillaah it is still reduced even the video that prompted this response, to us, is not an issue, we believe it is a continuation from the brother and he can’t be faulted for that.

Besides that, the tone is getting better and the labelling is not harsher, we do not say it is not harsh. May Allaah reward our brother best for that. But we like to implore him to further rein in on (as he did sometime ago) some of the pockets of unreasonableness in the name of Da’wah being exhibited by some of the brothers who look up to him and other notable brothers as their mentors. He should know them. They are there on Facebook.

I don’t plan to make this a lengthy thing, but the purview requires I make it lengthy because our brother really threw a jab at me. He said I am ignorant of the issue at hand, and that I am one of those confusing (or misleading) the people. Isn't that  Tasfeeh and Taj'heel he once complained someone did towards him? Though he fell short of labeling me a mumayyi which others have freely used for me and others. 

Sincerely, I will take it calm, and will not retaliate even though I have the justification in the Sunnah to do so (by the virtue of hadeeth of Abu Hurairah recorded by Muslim [2587], Abu Daawud [4894], at-Tirmidhee [1981] and Ahmad [10714]).

It will be unwise of me to hit him back when we are working out a solution to the already raised tension. Besides, I don’t want to be one of the two Shaytaan, if perchance I exceed my limits which I fear I may not be able to control myself.

But I beg him not to repeat that in future. He could have simply said, ‘what the fellow said is not correct’ or a similar clause.

So in response to the piece [click here to have a look] brought by me in the series, he said Ash-Shaykh Al-Albaanee - rahimahullaah - was establishing that Khabar Thiqah [the report of a trustworthy person] must be accepted. Nobody has ever said it is not acceptable except the Mu’tazilah, the Ash’aairah, and others like them, who reject the report of a single person in Aqeedah mostly. The Sunnah however proves them wrong. That is not the contention.

The contention, O readers, is that is it the Khabar of every Thiqah that is ABSOLUTELY accepted? The answer given by Ash-Shaykh al-Albaanee - rahimahullaah - shows it is not correct to say that. Though some may say some other scholars such as Shaykh Rabee and Shaykh Ubayd Jaabiree, may Allaah preserve them, said yes. Even though the lisaan haal and maqaal (implicit and explicit statements) of the latter show they don’t also accept that it as absolute as will be shown later Inshaa Allaah.

[I hope I am not taking much of the time already. My plan was that I would just be dropping scholars’ statements in the series and move on but this one requires this clarification.

Readers should please bear with me. My I advice: you can read this in piecemeal. Read, go to sleep, read, eat, and read. And if you like you can read it at a go, the latter option is better].

So we brought the statement of Shaykh Al-Albaanee - rahimahullaah - that shows that not all akhbaar thiqaat (reports of trustworthy people) are absolutely acceptable at the face-value. That intelligent response from Shaykh Al-Albaanee (we tagged it ‘an intelligent’ report because we knew very few people would understand it, a senior member of the Simplysalafiyyah board had to advise that I made some few points beneath it so that at least a layman would understand it. Our brother understood it for sure but waved its purport away).

So let me reproduce the purport again, not for our brother, but the general audience:

An authentic hadeeth has Five Conditions before it can be accepted:

1. That the chain is connected from the beginning to the end.

2. That its reporters have adaalah (Islam, not a mubtadi (that calls to his bid’a [a lot of issues here too]), piety, truthfulness, etc.)

3. Power of retentiveness of its reporters (they must be sharp in memory).

4. Not being a shaadh (this is where the issue is, we will revisit it below Inshaa Allaah)

5. That there is no hidden defect in the chain or any of the reporters.

Now on Condition Number Four: This is the basis Shaykh Al-Albaanee – rahimahullaah – was using to postulate that not all reports of trustworthy people are acceptable, in a perspective.

What is Shaadh?

In the study of the hadeeth, a shaadh is a hadeeth reported by someone whose hadeeth is ordinarily saheeh because he is trustworthy, and met other conditions, but whose hadeeth opposes the hadeeth of someone who is better or more reliable than him. in one of the definitions, though.

So Shaykh Al-Albaanee – rahimahullaah – said with that not all reports of trustworthy people are acceptable.

Our brother said ‘even what al-Allaamah Al-Albaanee said is estabslishing khabar thiqah.’

Who said the opposite? Or who will oppose that? In fact, the basis of the report of every thiqah is that it MUST be accepted provided we are sure he is a thiqah and what scholars, like Shaykh Rabee - hafidhahullaah - below, say about what can impugn his ‘thiqability’ are not present in him. The statement: every khabar thiqah must be accepted is a mutlaq that has some taqyidaat! 

Then we must be able to define who a thiqah is.

Good, our brother agreed the definition of a thiqah is nisbee (relative). Someone who is thiqah to fulaan might be a faasiq to another fulaan. That seems to be the argument of those doing Ishtiraat (condition) of tathabbut (verification) of who a thiqah is – and it is a mas’lah ilmiyyah, ijtihaadiyyah.

Shaykh Saeed Raslaan - hafidhahullaah - also opines that khabar thiqah must be accepted but upon the conditions of the people of hadeeth! He even cited a story of Umar - radiyallaahu an'hu - verifying from two persons the thiqability of another man. Shaykh Raslan even clearly stated that there must be tathabbut in reports of thiqaat lest there is a great Fitnah in the world. Is there not already?  Who is therefore a thiqah according to Shaykh Rasalaan? Hear him here.

He will agree that scholars of the past investigated those who claimed to be thiqaat. So they accepted those who they found to be thiqaat and rejected the reports of those who were not but claimed to be so.

No weak person would ever present himself as weak; he would say he is a thiqah. So we need to always investigate whom the thiqaat are. Especially this our time where many people will easily claim this.

He should also know that a thiqah can make mistakes in his report. So shall we accept the mistake of a thiqah when we know it is a mistake? If no, what will make us know he made a mistake? How shall we know he made a mistake?  

Shaykul Islam Ibn Taymiyyah – rahimahullaah – said in Majmuu Fataawa, 18/42, what indicates that a thiqah can make a mistake and have his report rejected:

وَقَدْ يَتْرُكُ مِنْ حَدِيثِ الثِّقَةِ مَا عَلِمَ أَنَّهُ أَخْطَأَ فِيهِ , فَيَظُنُّ مَنْ لَا خِبْرَةَ لَهُ أَنَّ كُلَّ مَا رَوَاهُ ذَلِكَ الشَّخْصُ يَحْتَجُّ بِهِ أَصْحَابُ الصَّحِيحِ , وَلَيْسَ الْأَمْرُ كَذَلِكَ

‘[A scholar] can reject the hadeeth of a thiqah when he knows that that thiqah made a mistake therein such that someone bereft of knowledge will think that everything reported by that fellow (whose particular hadeeth was rejected for a mistake he made) was cited as a proof by other Collectors of Saheeh; whereas the matter is not like that.’

The question is how would a scholar know that a thiqah has made a mistake?

Even in what goes beyond hadeeth shaadh, Ibn Taymiyyah – rahimahullaah – said certain reports of thiqaat can be rejected in Ilal Hadeeth [the knowledge of hidden defects in hadeeth]. For instance, he said in Muqaddimatun Fee Tafseer, p.231:

وكما أنهم يستشهدون ويعتبرون بحديث الذي فيه سوء حفظ فإنهم أيضا يضعفون من حديث الثقة الصدوق الضابط أشياء تبين لهم غلطة فيها بأمور يستدلون بها ويسمون هذا علم علل الحديث وهو من أشرف علومهم

‘Just as they [the people of hadeeth] will cite as supportive proofs and consider the hadeeth of someone who has some weakness in his retentiveness, they also weaken the hadeeth of a lightly trustworthy person who has a good retentiveness with factors that make errors clear in such reports, matters they cite and call the knowledge of Ilal hadeeth which is from the most splendid of their knowledge.’

Ash-Shaykh Uthaymeen – rahimahullaah – commented on that, p.232:

‘Yes, with us are these trustworthy people; but no one is free from mistakes…’

Another issue is that a thiqah might not have a problem but whom he is reporting from, are they also thiqaat? How shall we know?

Back to what Al-Imaam Al-Albaanee – rahimahullaah – said, the contention therefore is, did he say khabar thiqah must be ABSOLUTELY accepted with the premise (of definition of shaadh) he brought?

If our brother now says yes, which he did not say in the video, then the premise brought by Shaykh Al-Albaanee was meaningless.

But the Imaam is free from that meaninglessness.

What he was saying was for the intelligent which our brother is one of them but did not know how to juxtapose it with the stand he is calling to.

Let me also praise him for some of his glaring tanaazulaat, if he really meant them, when he said: ‘It is not compulsory that you accept what we are saying, whether you accept it or not, we will continue to use what is established in the Qur’aan and Sunnah…’ If he, and others, apply that principle, intahaa nizaa.’

But let us create a scenario for him, if two ‘trustworthy brothers’ bring two conflicting reports to him in Ilorin about a phenomenon, which is very possible especially at this time of ours, will he accept both reports the same time?

Our brother is an intelligent man, we have said.

So one of the reports has to be rejected when it is not possible to merge them. Then is the person whose report is rejected no more ‘trustworthy’?

I could have conveniently stopped here. But I like to add to it to really let our brothers know that this field of Islamic knowledge is a very wide one:

          ‘You may know some things and not know many.’

And that we should always know that we are still learners, all of us. If some people call us ‘Shaykh’ deceptively or otherwise we should not be deceived by that. We still have a long way to go. Is it not we, many of us, if not all, that cannot conveniently reel off the Forty Hadeeth without many somersaulting along the way before we reach the end, if at all we will reach there?

These tashayyukhaat are deceptions; we need to be careful.

So what is really our problem?      

Indeed the Hour is close. We ask Allaah for safety.

Na’am…

I wrote earlier on that the noble Shaykh, Rabee al-Madkhalee, may Allaah protect him from all harm, has statements that show that the acceptability of Khabar Thiqah is not absolute.

This issue once caused a great turmoil in Iraq that the Aimah had to wade in.

The sad news, my readers, is that I will leave it in Arabic. Why? I am tired. It is past five hours I have sat before my PC. Two, I have achieved what I want to achieve, Inshaa Allaah, in clarifying that Shaykh Al-Albaanee – rahimahullaah – did not accept that Khabar Thiqah is absolutely accepted. Three, I want it to be for talabatul-ilm – not everything that is known is said.

Excerpts:

Shaykh Rabee’s – rahimahullaah – stand is clear in that he rejects the condition of Tathabbut – verification of trustworthy reporters (one of the bases upon which Shaykh Al-Halabee is declared a Mubtadi):

Said Shaykh Rabee – rahimahullaah – in an answer[1] to a question about report of the trustworthy people and the ruling on the trustworthy people:

السؤال:هل يلزم الرجل أن يقبل نقل الثقة وحكمه، أم نقله فقط؟!
فأجاب الشيخ ربيع حفظه الله تعالى بقوله: ((خبر الثقة الأصل فيه القبول، إلا إذا خالف العدول؛ كما في الرواية الشاذة، وأما الأصل فيه القبول، ولا يجوز تكذيب المسلم ورد ما عنده من الحق، وإذا ما سلكنا هذا المنهج أبطلنا كثيراً من شرائع الإسلام، لو جلس رجل يعلِّمني من الكتاب والسنة، لو قال لي: قال رسول الله في صحيح البخاري كذا؛ أكذِّبه؟! لا، لما يقول لي: فلان مبتدع، أقول: لا!، هذا المذهب الذي يسمونه بالتثبت مذهب كاذب، التثبت الذي لا يريد الوصول للحقيقة وإنما يريد رد الحق، فيرد الحق ولا يتثبت، فيتخذ هذه حجة، وليس ممن يتثبت ليصل إلى الحق والحقيقة، وإنما ليرد الحق، ولهذا نراهم يردون أخباراً متواترة من علماء أجلاء تتخذ فتواهم وأحكامهم وأخبارهم، ويردونها بهذا المعول؛ الذي ظاهره معول إسلامي، وهو معول هدَّام ومعول شيطاني

Our brother should watch this particular part statement closely,

هذا المذهب الذي يسمونه بالتثبت مذهب كاذب، التثبت الذي لا يريد الوصول للحقيقة وإنما يريد رد الحق

Even that suggests that Shaykh Rabee – rahimahullaah – did not reject all verifications in reports of thiqaat! Perhaps only the ones done by the 'people of desires.'

At a point in time, Shaykh Rabee and Shaykh Ubayd Al-Jaabiree –may Allaah preserve both on goodness – warned the youths about wanton tabdee that arose from the misapplication of khabar thiqah such that they were at each other’s necks in Iraaq that according to Shaykh Abdullaah Ma’hawish who quoted both Shaykhs in his book, Eedaah Wa Taudeeh Hataa Taj’tami’a Kalimah,[2] as saying

أحكام أئمة الجرح والتعديل العلماء المؤهلين العارفين بأسباب الجرح تتنزل منزلة الأخبار لأنَّ أحكامهم مبنية على معرفة الرجال وتتبع أحوالهم إلاَّ إذا قابلها معارض معتبر فحينئذ يجب بيان أسباب الجرح.
أما أحكام طلبة العلم الثقات فإنَّها تتنزل منزلة الأخبار في المسائل والبدع الظاهرة كالتجهم والرفض وغيرها ، ممَّا بينها العلماء واتضح أمرها .
وأما المسائل الخفية فلا تكون أقوالهم فيها بمنزلة الأخبار ؛ بل تكون بمنزلة الشهادة وترفع إلى العلماء).

The take from the above quote is that it is only the reports of the Senior Scholars that can be treated as Akhbaar Thiqaat as for the reports like mine and our brother’s, and many other students of knowledge, it is mere shahaadah -  witnessing even we might be thiqaat!

That will beg for an evidence, you will say. But we will have a good thought about our scholars that it is an ijtihaad from them which they are qualified to enter into (though subject to correctness or otherwise).

The message was communicated by Shaykh Abdullaah Mahawish to the people differing:

كنت اليوم 2 شعبان 1436. بعد صلاة المغرب الى العشاء عند والدنا الشيخ العلامة ربيع بن هادي المدخلي -بارك الله في عمره على طاعته -ويوصيكم بتقوى الله ويحثكم على الائتلاف وترك التنازع فإنه من الشيطان الرجيم. وأن ماحصل من خلاف بينهم يجب تركه وجميعهم سلفيون والحمد لله .فلا يرد أحد على أحد.
وأنا بدوري انقل إليكم كلام الإمام الكبير وشيخ أهل الغربة في هذا الزمان واطلب منكم احترام هذا الإمام الجبل وهذا هو الامتحان الحقيقي في طاعة أولي الأمر منكم. كما قال تعالى {يأيها الذين آمنوا أطيعوا الله وأطيعوا الرسول وأولي الأمر منكم}).

How I wish we, in Nigeria, can take a clue from this.

So what happened? The people involved in the issue in Iraaq dropped their differences, not because of evidences adduced, but because of the harm in the differing!

One of them, Alee Ash-Shamree,wrote under the topic ‘Ala ar-Ra’s wal Ayn:

أبلغنا الشيخ عبد الله بن مهاوش أمر الشيخ الوالد ربيع بن هادي المدخلي (حفظه الله) بسحب كل ما نشر في ما يتعلق بالخلاف في مسألة حكم الثقة ، واستجابة لأمره فأنا أحذف ما نشر ت بهذا الخصوص

So also Mahmuud Az-Zabuu’ee wrote:

استجابة لطلب الشيخ الوالد ربيع بن هادي المدخلي حفظه الله تعالى بحذف ماحصل من ردود في موضوع حكم الثقة وخبر الثقة، فإني احذف كل ما صدر مني وارجو من الأخوة الذين كتبوا في هذا الموضوع حذف ردودهم تحقيقا لطلب الشيخ الوالد

So the latter principle of Shaykh Rabee, may Allaah preserve him on goodness, that Khabar Thiqah is not absolute stands! Walhamdulillaah.

Epilogue

Once again, special apology to my English audience for my not translating the last part of this piece. It was intentional as I earlier wrote.

This matter will be expanded if the need arises, Inshaa Allaah.

Wallaahul Musta’aan.

O Allaah! Unite our hearts upon the truth.