Why This Famous Hadith Has a Weak Chain

Alhamdulillah.

[Silence]

, continuing the chapter of vigilance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's observation. We're going to skip forward a little bit to the seventh narration in the chapter. This narration is on the authority of Aba Shad Ibuad. Have we has anyone or have we heard of this companion before? I'm sure that when I tell you the narration, it's going to ring a bell. The narration or at least its meaning. However, the companion is probably lesser known. He narrates that the prophet sallall.aii wasallam said is a very popular saying. Many people have heard this narration before, have at least are at least acquainted with its meaning. He says,.

[Silence]

We heard this before. You've heard this before. Correct. Very famous statement. However, chain of narration wise, it's a weak narration. And this marks one of the first narrations in that has a weak chain of narration. relied very heavily in his book on the authentication of he also relied very heavily on so these are two books that is one of the main three books that is really comprised of less so but he does mention many narrations from and if you were to imagine we said he passed away at how how old was he when he passed away? How old was he when he passed away?

[Arabic recitation]

39. 40 38 45 years old. He passed away at 45 years old. And that is very very young especially for him because and this is another point which makes his narrations very or his his works very incredible meaning his achievements and what he was able to achieve in such a short length of time. He became he started studying when he was 19 19 years old which is actually a very old age to really start studying usually. Usually most scholars will have started before the age of 10. Now he did memorize the Quran before he had finished before he would had reached the age of puberty. However, officially starting to study Islam and fick and the sciences of Islam etc. It was after the age of 19 when he went for Hajj with his father and then he moved from Noah which is where he's from to Dimash and started to study there. And so because of that short time that he lived, , we see that he has to rely on the opinions of the scholars that came before him, especially on things such as chains of narration, chains of narrations. And for a person to go through every chain of narration and to authenticate it individually, this takes this is a very egregious process. It takes a long time to get to a conclusion and sometimes it could take days or weeks in researching just one narration in its chain. And so because of this especially in compiling some of his earlier books like he relies very heavily on the authentication of and also on meaning that Abu D of course we've heard of Abi right and Abu D mentioned something a little bit cryptic in his introduction and that is anything that I don't say that I don't criticize that means that I view it as authentic but that is not an absolute rule and so because of that he narrates narrations from and he relies on their authentication. This narration is very wellnown and its meaning is correct. 100% its meaning is correct. But there's something that we have to understand and that is that not every good statement, not every correct statement is fit to be the words of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam. Just because a statement is good, just because a statement is true, just because a statement rings true, even if the statement itself seems to be prophetic of something perhaps that will happen in the future or something that doesn't mean that it is fit to be the words of the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam. And many if not most weak narrations are confused as words of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam or not affirmed as his words because of weak narrators. A narrator who made a mistake. Right? That's essentially what a weak narration is. It's a narrator who made a mistake or it's a narrator whom we can't be 100% or 90% or 85% sure that these are the words of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And so because of that there are many weak narrations which are weak narrations but their meaning is correct and the scholars might even cite them and use them occasionally especially if the narration itself has a meaning that roots back to the Quran and Sunnah a meaning that's already established in the Quran and Sunnah and so they mention this narration even though its chain of nar narration may be weak have some weakness in it but its meaning is already found in the generalities of the Quran and Sunnah. This narration has a narrator in it by the name of Abu Bakrb and Abu Bakrbiam is a well-known narrator of hadith who did not have the best most reliable memory. But when we listen to the narration, the narration is correct. Its meaning is correct. Its meaning is found in the Quran. All throughout the Quran, its meaning is found all throughout the prophet sallall.aii wasallam sunnah. So the weakness is very very slight. The weakness is very slight. And alhamdulillah, if we were to gather all the weak narrations of out of about 2,000, just shy of 2,000 narrations is a little less than 70 or at most a few narrations over 70. So approximately 70 narrations and that's a very small amount. Alhamdulillah. And second of all, there are no narrations in which are agreed upon to be weak. There's no narrations in which are agreed upon amongst the scholarship of Islam to be weak. Thirdly, there are no weak narrations in that the meaning is incorrect because sometimes there are weak narrations where the chain of narration is weak and the meaning is incorrect. Right? However, there are no narrations in which the narration is inauthentic and its meaning is incorrect. All of them have some some semblance of correct meaning. And so this narration which many people know the wise, right? So a wise individual, the intelligent, right? An intelligent person, truly wise, intelligent, clever, truly clever is the one who for.

[Silence]

Them.

[Silence]

Right. So here he's saying the intelligent is the one who brings himself to account justly. He judges himself correctly. He doesn't give himself a bunch of breaks. Doesn't come up with a bunch of excuses to justify his poor behavior. The intelligent person is someone who who judges himself accordingly. And does actions for that which comes after death. He puts things forth for himself. He doesn't make his major actions and his major efforts something that are specific in particular to this world. What he really works towards is what is after death. This all goes back to intelligence. Why? Because the intelligent person what separates us from animals in intelligence. One of the main differences between human beings and animals with respect to intelligence is that the human being is able to imagine the future and is able to tie consequences to the present even if they can't see those consequences immediately. You look at an animal, the only way you can really teach an animal, even really smart animals, is to give them immediate punishment or immediate reward. This is the only way you can build proper behavior. Many times if you punish an animal, it doesn't even know why it's being punished. It has no idea, does not understand. The human being has what is referred to in the Quran as a is able to look and conceive in the future of a consequence that may not occur right now but will occur far into the future. A human being is able to do this. animals, they can't do this. Animals cannot delay gratification unless it's part of their nature. And animals cannot with withhold themselves and fight against their instincts because they have reached to a a conclusion that this is bad for me because of something that will be in the future, not right now. Animals can't do that. Their intelligence is too blunted. And so the human being who behaves like an animal, this is un this is the unintelligent person. an intelligent person. True Kesa, true intelligence and cleverness and wisdom that a person is able to conceive of this having an effect way later down the line even past death. And so the prophet or and so in this narration, the truly wise, the truly clever intelligence, the intelligent one is one who is able to bring himself to account and does things and works deeds for what is coming after death. Because they have deduced that this cannot be the only thing that we exist for. There has to be something.

[Arabic recitation]