A person who attacks the Ahl as-Sunna scholars and who is irreverent towards fiqh books belongs to none of the four madhhabs. ’Abdullah ibn ’Îsâ San’ânî, in his book Saif al-Hindî fî ibânati tariqati ’sh-shaikhi ’n-Najdî (ed.
There is a separate branch of knowledge called usûl al-hadîth, in which ‘mawdû hadîth’ does not mean ‘made-up hadîth’. Today, those who know nothing of this knowledge think of its lexical meaning and suppose that it means ‘made-up hadîth.’[1]
The book Usûl al-hadîth by the great scholar Imâm Muhammad al-Birghiwî is very valuable. Dâwûd al-Karsî wrote a commentary to this book in
“All the hadîths reported by a person who was known to have lied when reporting any hadîth are called mawdû’ or muftarî hadîths, for there was the probability that all the hadîths he reported were made-up, slanderous. As it is seen, in usûl al-hadîth, a hadîth called mawdû’ does not have to be made-up, for, even if the person who was caught in his lying with one hadîth repented and became pious, all the hadîths he reported would still be said to be mawdû’. The book Tadrîb by Imâm as-Suyûtî
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[1] For more detailed information on this knowledge and on mawdû’ hadîths, see the fifth chapter in the book Endless Bliss, II.
and also many of the hadîth scholars say that this is so. The heretical groups, in order to lead Muslims out of the right path, and apostates, in order to trick Muslims, invented hadîths. And some tekke shaikhs invented hadîths in order to encourage to worship and to frighten against sinning. It is harâm to invent hadîths with such good intentions, and it is kufr if it is intended to trick Muslims. The hadîths praising the sûras in the tafsîr books of as-Sa’labî, al-Wâhidî, az-Zamakhsharî, al-Baidâwî and Abû ‘s-Su’ûd are claimed to be mawdû’ by some ignorant people. It is obvious that the hadîths that praise the sûras al-Fâtiha, al-An’âm, al-Kahf, Yâ Sîn, ad-Dukhân al-Mulk, az-Zilzâl, an-Nasr, al-Kâfirûn al-Ikhlâs, al-Falaq and an-Nâs are sahîh. The authors
of these books quoted in their books the hadîths that were claimed to be mawdû’ because they considered them as sahîh, hasan or at least da’îf, or because they had conveyed them just as they were from the hadîth scholars whom they depended on, or because they would not admit that they were mawdû’. With the help of the fairly certain presumption, it can be decided if a hadîth is sahîh; it cannot be known for certain. There are many hadîths which the majority of hadîth scholars said to be sahîh but which other scholars of this branch did not say so. Many others were not able to understand whether they were sahîh or not, for it was very difficult to understand if a hadîth was sahîh. It could be understood only with presumption; it could not be understood certainly. In order to make sure that a hadîth is made-up, one of
its narrators had to say, “I invented this”; or it should have been known for certain that the person who, he said, had told it to him had died before he was born; or the saying which was said to be a hadîth should have been incompatible with Islam, with reason, with calculation or with experience, and it could not have been explained away differently. Only the hadîth scholars can understand all these. These profound scholars also may be mistaken in understanding them. It is for this reason that there have been scholars who said ‘sahîh’, ‘hasan’ or ‘da’îf’ about many of the hadîths for which Abu ’l-faraj ibn al-Jawzî said ‘mawdû’ in his book Mawdû’at. Imâm az-Zahabî
said that the majority of the hadîths written in that book were dependable and beautiful hadîths. We have derived what we have written up to here from the books Taqrîb by Imâm an-Nawawî, Tadrîb by as-Suyûtî and Nukhba by Shaikh
al-Islâm Ibn Hajar al-Askalânî.”[1]
It would be extremely insolent, unfair and unreasonable to suppose that the greatest scholars like al-Baidâwî, Imâm al-Ghazâlî, Jalâl ad-dîn as-Suyûtî, Sadr ad-dîn al-Qonawî and Sanâ’ullâh Pâniputî were too ignorant to distinguish a sahîh hadîth from a made-up hadîth, or to suppose that they were as irreligious as not to protect their religion or not to feel pangs of conscience in recording made-up hadîths as sahîh hadîths. We have told at length in the seventh and eighth paragraphs of our book how strictly Islamic scholars studied hadîths. An intelligent and reasonable person who reads those writings will certainly realize that a religion reformer, who shows so much effrontery as to say that there are concocted hadîths in the books written by such a great scholar as Imâm al-Ghazâlî, would have deserved it if his tongue were cut off or his books were burned to ashes. To say that those exalted scholars could not understand the hadîths while their successor Ibn Taimiyya could is a fallacy that would ill befit anyone with the exception of the enemies of the Ahl as-Sunna scholars. Those who cannot comprehend the greatness of Islamic scholars suppose that those exalted leaders also wrote with their short reasons and aberrant thoughts, like these people do. Their sophistry stoops to such low levels as to say, “Al-Ghazâlî’s discernment was obscured under the bad influence of social ideas.” They cannot realize that each of his writings is an explanation of âyats and hadîths. If a person who praises al-Imâm ar-Rabbânî is sincere in his word and if he likes that exalted leader’s writings, he should follow these writings and love the Ahl as-Sunna scholars, whom al-Imâm ar-Rabbânî praises highly, and he should not be disrespectful towards them. One should be a scholar to appreciate the value of another scholar. Not to realize the value of the Ahl as-Sunna scholars, or to strive to blemish and criticize those blessed persons, causes one to depart from al-firqat an-nâjiyya (the Group of Salvation), and he who departs from Ahl as-Sunna becomes either a heretic or an unbeliever.[2] As it is written on page 65 of the book Hidâyat al-muwaffiqîn by Abû Muhammad Viltorî, one of the ’ulamâ’ of India, ’Allâma Ahmad
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[1] Imâm Muhammad al-Birghiwî, Usûl al-hadîth, p. 91.
[2] Mawlânâ Hamd-Allah ad-Dajwî, al-Basâ’ir li-munkirî’t-tawassuli bi-ahl al-maqâbir, Pashawar, Pakistan, 1385, p. 52.
Sâwî al-Mâlikî said on the âyat “Idhâ nasîta” of the sûrat al-Kahf in the marginalia of Jalalain’s tafsîr: “It is not permissible to follow a madhhab other than the four madhhabs. One who does not follow one of the four madhhabs is in heresy (dalâla) and also leads others to heresy. Some of such people become kâfirs because one of the things that cause kufr is to attempt to derive rules from âyats and hadîths.”