The Jumhur (Ahl al-Sunnah) hold that...

The Jumhur (Ahl al-Sunnah) hold that: The akhbar al-ahad never indicate cognizancer at all, even if they were recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim. Approving of them by the Ummah verily signify to act according to whatever stated in them, on the basis that the Ummah is commanded to adopt every khabar which is most likely nearer to truth, 515 and does not denote that what they contain is in itself static absolutely.

The express example for this is the judge, who is obligated to issue his rule according to the testimony of that who is apparently reliable.

And his being duty-bound to do so never indicates that the testimony of a just person should be necessarily agreeable with reality and static in itself, due to the possibility that he might have given witness contrary to truth either due to having a wrong conception if his being just in respect of the same matter, or a falsity not produced by him if he being apparently equitable, according to what the Ahl al-Sunnah hold.

A large number of ulama’ of akhbar al-ahad hold that he should act according to them without giving witness that they were uttered by the Prophet. Ibn Abd al-Barr and his contemporaries hold that: This idea is held by the Jumhur of men of knowledge and prudence.. with some of them adding...reven if accompanied with a context (qarinah), i.e. it doesn't indicate knowledge even if accompanied with a context. Al-Razi, in his Tafsir, says: narration of wahid (single) only indicates conjecture.

And in his Ma’alam usul al-Din, 516 after enumerating the spontaneous elements contained in the traditional proofs based on oral narration, he writes: "If this is proved, we would come to know that the traditional evidences being only conjectural, and the rational ones being definite, and conjecture can never contradict (or negate) decisiveness." Mutawatir is not Included in ‘Ilm al-Isnad: Ibn al-Salah is reported to have said: About the mutawatir it should never be researched in ‘ilm al-athar.

In Tawjih al-nazar al-Jaza'iri writes: What Ibn al-Salah disclosed that it should never be researched about the mutawatir in ‘ilm al-athar, is an indisputable fact. Some of the ulama hold: The mutawatir does not belong to the school of ‘ilm al-isnad, 517 as it is a science in which the research is made about the veracity and weakness of hadith, in respect of the characteristics of its narrators, and forms of their statements, so as to act according to it or abandon it.