In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Blessings and peace be upon the noblest of the Prophets and Messengers, our Prophet Muhammad, and upon all his family and Companions.
This is a detailed summary of what was covered in this part of the explanation of Imam al-Shafi’i’s al-Risalah, focusing on the important points and clarifications, and supplemented with some additions and explanations that help in understanding the issue more deeply.
Paragraph 1244 onward: continuing the discussion of the authority of the solitary report and the conditions for accepting it:
Imam al-Shafi’i continues to set out the authority of the solitary report, explaining when a solitary report is accepted and when it is rejected, and showing that the jurists did not differ over accepting the solitary report in principle.
- The hadith “A Muslim does not inherit from a disbeliever”: Al-Shafi’i cites the hadith of ‘Ali ibn Husayn, from ‘Amr ibn ‘Uthman, from Usamah ibn Zayd, that the Prophet ﷺ said: “A Muslim does not inherit from a disbeliever.” He shows that this hadith establishes a Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, and that people establish it on the basis of this report. He affirms the reliability of ‘Amr ibn ‘Uthman and shows that his hadith is agreed upon (by al-Bukhari and Muslim). He mentions that this hadith is also narrated from Anas in al-Bukhari, al-Tirmidhi, and Abu Dawud.
- Reports of the Successors from the Companions from the Prophet ﷺ: He explains that reports of the Successors from the Companions from the Prophet ﷺ, even when they come through a single route, are counted among the Sunnahs of the Prophet ﷺ. He mentions a group of the hadith narrators of Madinah, Makkah, Yemen, Syria, Basra, and Kufa who narrated reports from the Companions, and that they established such reports as Sunnah.
- The jurists’ consensus on establishing the solitary report: Al-Shafi’i stresses that if it were permissible for anyone to claim a consensus of the Muslims, early and late, on establishing the solitary report and deferring to it, it would be permissible for him; but he says: “I do not know of the jurists of the Muslims having differed over establishing the solitary report in the way I have described, since that is found among all of them.”
- Responding to the objection that there are false hadiths and statements contradicting hadiths: Al-Shafi’i shows that it is not permissible for a scholar to establish solitary reports many times, declaring things forbidden on their basis, and then reject one like them, unless he has a hadith that contradicts it, or the person from whom he heard is more reliable in his view than the one who narrated the contrary to him, or he has suspicion about someone above his informant in the chain, or the hadith bears two meanings and he interprets it accordingly.
- Explaining the phrase “or what he heard, and the one from whom he heard it, are more reliable in his view than the one who narrated the contrary to him”: He explains that this phrase involves a reordering of words, and that the intended sense is: “or what he heard is contrary to it, or the one from whom he heard is more reliable in his view than the one who narrated.” That is, a scholar may hear a hadith and then hear another hadith that contradicts it, or hear a hadith from a trustworthy narrator and then hear another contradicting it from someone more trustworthy, so he rejects the first hadith and accepts the second.
- The conditions under which scholars reject a solitary report: Al-Shafi’i summarizes the conditions under which a scholar may reject a solitary report:
- That he has a hadith contradicting it.
- That the person from whom he heard is more reliable in his view than the one who narrated the contrary to him.
- That he has suspicion about someone above his informant in the chain.
- That the hadith bears two meanings and he interprets it accordingly.
- It is not permissible to reject a solitary report without one of these reasons: He stresses that it is not permissible for a sensible scholar to establish a Sunnah by a solitary report and then abandon it for a report like it, or a more reliable one, without one of these reasons.
- Al-Shafi’i excusing the imams in their contradiction of texts: He points out that al-Shafi’i was perhaps the first to offer excuses for the imams where they contradicted texts, and that more than one scholar took this idea from him, among them Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah in his treatise Raf’ al-Malam ‘an al-A’immah al-A’lam.
- Rebutting the claim that “there is hardly a jurist in any land who has not narrated much that he adopts and a little that he leaves”: He shows that the jurists left nothing of the Sunnah except for the reason he described, such as the hadith having a hidden defect, coming through a weak route, bearing two meanings, or the like.
- The meaning of narrating a statement to make it known rather than because it is a proof: He explains that a scholar may narrate a statement of the Successors or of those after them in order to make it known, not because it is a proof binding on him with which he agrees or disagrees, and that later scholars call this “corroboration” (istishhad) or “supporting reference” (isti’nas).
- A scholar has no excuse for contradicting the Sunnah for other reasons: He stresses that if a scholar contradicts the Sunnah for reasons other than these, he has no excuse. He rebuts the statement of some later Malikis that “adhering to the apparent meaning of the Sunnah leads to disbelief,” and shows that this is a statement for which they have no excuse.
Some additional benefits:
- Clarifying the conditions for accepting and rejecting the solitary report.
- Explaining Imam al-Shafi’i’s standing in defending the imams.
- Clarifying the meaning of istishhad and isti’nas.
- Refuting some mistaken statements on the issue of acting on the Sunnah.
We ask Allah the Exalted to grant us success in understanding His Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet ﷺ, and to make us among those who follow them.
All parts of Summary of the Explanation of al-Risala by Shaykh Dr. Ahmad al-Naqeeb