This alone can never be enough to make of anyone a knowledgeable man...

This alone can never be enough to make of anyone a knowledgeable man, of whose knowledge people can benefit, or trust his sayings or verdicts.

In regard of a man said to be striving much till reaching a degree that could not be attained by any other one, learning by heart all of Sahih al-Bukhari, al-Imam Muhammad Abduh said: “One copy increased in the country…“By God al-Imam said the truth: what he meant that the worth of this man, who was admired by all people due to his memorizing of al-Bukhari, was not more than the value of a copy of al-Bukhari’s book, that can’t move or comprehend !!

Al-Dhahabi, from whom we quoted these words, being in fact the great traditionist and historian of Islam, in regard of whom al-Safadi in his book Nukat al-himyan has said: I have met him and learned from him so many of his compilations, never seeing in him the inaction of traditionists, or non-originality of transmitters. 722 That was not to be said by al-Safadi but only due to the inertia widely known to afflict the men of hadith.

Al-Imam described them also with putrefication and narrow-mindedness, in his book Risalat al-Islam wa al-Nasraniyyah.

723 If all that was said by al-Safadi about his shaykh for the sake of exempting him from the defect of stiffness (jumud) known to be common among men of hadith, his shaykh al-Dhahabi himself has uttered the following words in their regard in his valuable book Siyar a’lam al-nubala’, in the biography of al-Faqih al-Muhaddith Shaykh al-Islam Abu Bakr ibn Ayyash: I reported from the book Fawa’id of Abu `Amr Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Nisaburi, from Abu Turab Muhammad ibn al-Faraj who said: I heard Khalid ibn Abd Allah al-Kufi saying: On the way of Abu Bakr ibn Ayyash there was a dog, that on seeing any inkpot owner (i.e.

one of scribes of hadith) it would attack him. One day men of hadith have fed it something which caused its death. Abu Bakr then went out, and on seeing it dead said: We all belong to God, that who used to bid to good and forbid from evil has gone away. Nu’aym ibn Hammad says: Abu Bakr ibn Ayyash used to spit at men of hadith.

In Ta’wil mukhtalif al-hadith (p.96) Ibn Qutaybah writes: We cannot exempt most of men of hadith from censure and blame in our books, due to neglect acquiring knowledge of what they wrote, and comprehend what they compiled, with rushing into seeking to obtain the hadith from ten or twenty ways!