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# How a Hadith Is Judged
- URL: https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/how-a-hadith-is-judged/
- Published: 2026-09-27T02:58:44.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T23:41:32.000Z
- Description: Ṣaḥīḥ, ḥasan, ḍaʿīf, "graded by al-Albānī": what those labels on hadith citations actually mean, who decides them, how Sunni and Shia methods differ, and how to check a reference yourself.
- Author: Mohammad Siddiqui
- Tags: Deen

New to the Qur'an? Start with [The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-quran/), then read [Muhammad ﷺ: A Life](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/prophet-muhammad/). All articles: [Deen: Start Here](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/deen/).

Deen · Reference

Almost every piece on this blog stops at some point to say that a hadith is "ṣaḥīḥ", "ḥasan" or "ḍaʿīf", or that it was "graded by al-Albānī" or "graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam". I have used those labels as if everyone knows what they mean. Many readers do not, and some of the arguments I have written about (the 15th of Shaʿbān, the Mawlid, Ghadīr) turn on exactly these judgements. So this is the page I will point back to.

It is written for a general reader. The science is old, technical and argued over from the inside, and where Sunni and Shia scholars do things differently I say so.

Two companion pages go further than this one. [The People Behind the Hadith](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-narrators-and-chains/) looks at the narrators themselves and follows some real chains link by link, and [The Hadith Collections](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-collections/) maps the major books as a tree, so you can see where any collection I mention sits among the others.

This is a research article, not a fatwa. If you need a ruling on a practice, please ask a qualified scholar you trust.

### The short version

1. A hadith has two parts: the chain of people who passed it on (*isnād*) and the text itself (*matn*). Both are examined.
2. For Sunni scholars, a report is *ṣaḥīḥ* when the chain is unbroken, every narrator is upright and accurate, and the report is neither anomalous nor carrying a hidden flaw. *Ḥasan* is a notch below; *ḍaʿīf* fails somewhere.
3. Grades are human judgements. Classical and modern critics sometimes disagree about the same report, and a grading line on a website tells you who made the call, not that the matter is closed.
4. Bukhārī and Muslim won near-unanimous acceptance among Sunnis by roughly 1000–1070 CE, but even then a critic such as al-Dāraquṭnī questioned 217 of their narrations.
5. Twelver Shia scholars use a parallel but distinct scheme (ṣaḥīḥ, ḥasan, muwaththaq, ḍaʿīf), and they do not regard any book, including al-Kāfī, as wholly authentic.
6. You can check most citations yourself in a few minutes on sunnah.com, if you know which line to read.

### Contents

1. [What a hadith is](#anatomy)
2. [A worked example: "Actions are by intentions"](#worked)
3. [A second example: a famous saying that fails](#failing)
4. [The grades and the ways a report fails](#grades)
5. [Judging the narrators](#rijal)
6. [Judging the text](#matn)
7. [The Six Books and "it's in Bukhārī"](#canon)
8. [Why the numbers never match](#numbers)
9. [Modern graders: al-Albānī and after](#modern)
10. [Weak hadith and virtuous deeds](#weak)
11. [The Shia science in brief](#shia)
12. [Checking a hadith yourself](#check)

## What a hadith is

A hadith is a report of what the Prophet ﷺ said, did or approved. (For Twelver Shia it also covers reports from the Imams.) What reaches us is never a bare quotation. It arrives wrapped in a list of names: "A told us that B told him that he heard C say that the Messenger of Allah said..."

That list is the *isnād*. The words attributed to the Prophet are the *matn*. By the second Islamic century, with forgery already a known problem, a report with no chain was treated as a claim with no evidence. The critic tests the chain link by link, and also tests the text against the Qurʾān, better-established reports and known history. In practice the two jobs overlap: an odd text often leads a critic to the weak link.

The instinct to check is older than the technical science. The Qurʾān tells the believers: "if an evildoer brings you any news, verify ˹it˺ so you do not harm people unknowingly..." (49:6).[31](#src-31) And near the start of his *Ṣaḥīḥ*, Muslim places a report from Abū Hurayra that the Prophet ﷺ said: "It is enough of a lie for a man to narrate everything he hears" (Muslim 5, in the Introduction).[32](#src-32) Hadith criticism is, among other things, a long attempt to work out what that verifying should look like in practice.

## A worked example: "Actions are by intentions"

Al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870) opens his *Ṣaḥīḥ* with a short hadith that most Muslims know by heart. Here is the text, and below it the chain as printed at Bukhārī 1:

إِنَّمَا الأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ، وَإِنَّمَا لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مَا نَوَى

"Actions are only by intentions, and every person will have only what they intended."

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1 (opening lines). [sunnah.com/bukhari:1](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)

1. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, speaking from the pulpitCompanion; "I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say..."
2. ʿAlqama ibn Waqqāṣ al-LaythīHeard ʿUmar
3. Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-TaymīHeard ʿAlqama; died around 120/738
4. Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-AnṣārīFrom here the report spreads widely
5. Sufyān (ibn ʿUyayna)
6. al-Ḥumaydī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ZubayrAl-Bukhārī's own teacher

Notice something unusual. For the first four links there is, in the surviving record, only one narrator at each level. Technically that makes the hadith *gharīb* (or *fard*): "solitary". Muslim's version ([Muslim 1907a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1907a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)) runs through the same four men, via Mālik from Yaḥyā.[1](#src-1) So one of the best-known hadith in Islam is, at its root, a single-strand report, which is a useful corrective to the idea that "authentic" means "widely reported".

Now test it against the definition of ṣaḥīḥ that Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 643/1245) set down in his *Muqaddima*, which became the standard reference for later Sunni scholars:[7](#src-7)[20](#src-20)

الحديثُ المُسنَدُ الذي يتَّصلُ إسنادُه بنقلِ العدلِ الضابطِ عن العدلِ الضابطِ إلى منتهاه، ولا يكونُ شاذًّا ولا مُعلَّلًا

"The hadith with a supported chain, connected by the transmission of an upright, precise narrator from an upright, precise narrator all the way to its end, which is neither anomalous nor defective."

Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, *Muqaddima*, first category (my translation).

That sentence contains five conditions. Walking Bukhārī 1 through them:

### 1\. A connected chain (ittiṣāl)

Each narrator must have received the report from the one before. Here the verbs are explicit ("I heard", "he informed me"), and each pair were contemporaries in Madina. No gap.

### 2\. Upright narrators (ʿadāla)

ʿAdāla is moral and religious integrity. None of the six men was accused of dishonesty by the early critics.

### 3\. Precision (ḍabṭ)

Honesty is not enough; a narrator must also be accurate, whether from memory or from a well-kept written record. This is where things become interesting. Ibn Ḥajar's *Taqrīb* rates al-Taymī "*thiqa lahu afrād*", reliable but with some reports only he carries.[8](#src-8) Al-Dhahabī records that the critics accepted him, while Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal remarked that he "narrated *manākīr*". In Aḥmad's vocabulary that often meant "unusual, singular reports" rather than "false ones", which is a good early warning that technical terms shift between generations.

### 4\. Not anomalous (lā shudhūdh)

A report is *shādhdh* when a reliable narrator contradicts others who are more reliable or more numerous. Since nobody else transmits this hadith from ʿUmar in a conflicting form, there is nothing for it to clash with.

### 5\. No hidden defect (lā ʿilla)

An *ʿilla* is a concealed flaw, visible only when every version of a report is collected and compared: a chain wrongly "raised" to the Prophet ﷺ when it really stopped at a Companion, two reports merged, a name swapped. No such flaw was found here. Pass all five and the report is ṣaḥīḥ, with no requirement that many people carried it.

## A second example: a famous saying that fails

Bukhārī 1 passes every test. It is just as instructive to watch a report fail, and there is an obvious candidate: a line that turns up on school posters, in graduation speeches and in countless forwarded messages.

اطلبوا العلم ولو بالصين

"Seek knowledge, even if it is in China."

Attributed to the Prophet ﷺ through Anas ibn Mālik.

Step through it the way a hadith critic would. Each step shows what the critics found, with the source.

1. 1\. Where is it recorded? Warning sign  
It is not in al-Bukhārī, Muslim or any of the Six Books. It is transmitted by al-ʿUqaylī and Ibn ʿAdī, both of whom compiled books on weak narrators, and by al-Bayhaqī and Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, all through Anas.[27](#src-27)[29](#src-29) When a saying is best known from books about unreliable transmitters, that is already a warning.
2. 2\. Is the chain connected? On paper, yes  
The best-known route runs from Anas to Abū ʿĀtika Ṭarīf ibn Sulaymān and on to later transmitters. No link is visibly missing, so the problem is not a gap.[29](#src-29)
3. 3\. Are the narrators upright and precise? Fails  
Abū ʿĀtika is the weak point. The critics called him *munkar al-ḥadīth*, a narrator whose reports are rejected.[29](#src-29) One failed link is enough: a chain is only as strong as its weakest narrator.
4. 4\. Can other routes lift it? No  
A mildly weak report can rise to ḥasan when independent routes support it (see [the grades](#grades) below). That is not possible here. Al-Bayhaqī, who knew the other routes, said its text is well known but its chain weak, and al-Dhahabī said its chain is not sound. Nothing on offer is strong enough to lift it.[27](#src-27)
5. 5\. The verdict Mawḍūʿ  
Ibn Ḥibbān called it *bāṭil lā aṣl lahu*, "false, with no basis". Ibn al-Jawzī placed it in his collection of forgeries, *al-Mawḍūʿāt*. Al-Albānī judged it fabricated (*Ḍaʿīf al-Jāmiʿ*, no. 906), saying that Ibn Ḥibbān and Ibn al-Jawzī had it right.[27](#src-27)[28](#src-28)[29](#src-29)
6. 6\. What survives? The first half  
"Seeking knowledge is an obligation on every Muslim" is a separate report, and it has a more interesting history. The chain printed in Ibn Mājah 224 is graded very weak (*ḍaʿīf jiddan*) by Darussalam, yet al-Albānī graded the saying ṣaḥīḥ in *Ṣaḥīḥ Sunan Ibn Mājah* on the strength of its many other routes.[30](#src-30)[28](#src-28) So one chain can fail while the saying it carries is accepted, and a famous addition can be baseless even though the sentence it is attached to is sound. Both lessons come up again and again.

Next stepShow allStart again

If you would like to see chains drawn out link by link, with each narrator's dates and the critics' verdicts one tap away, the [chain explorer](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-narrators-and-chains/#explorer) in *The People Behind the Hadith* does exactly that for five real isnāds, including Bukhārī 1.

## The grades and the ways a report fails

### Mutawātir and āḥād

Classical theory sorts reports by how many people carried them. A *mutawātir* report is transmitted by so many independent people at every level that collusion on a lie is inconceivable. The standard example is the warning "whoever lies about me deliberately, let him take his seat in the Fire" ([Bukhārī 110](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:110?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), one of many routes).[2](#src-2) Everything below that threshold is *āḥād*, "singular", which sub-divides into *mashhūr* (well known, three or more), *ʿazīz* (two) and *gharīb* (one). The vast majority of hadith, including "actions are by intentions" at its root, are āḥād. Being āḥād does not make a report weak; it bears on how much certainty it yields, which theologians and jurists have long argued over.

### Ṣaḥīḥ, ḥasan, ḍaʿīf

| Grade                   | What it means                                                                                                                                              | Can it be used for law?                                       |
| ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Ṣaḥīḥ** (sound)       | Meets all five conditions.[7](#src-7) A report that meets them only when supported by other routes is called *ṣaḥīḥ li-ghayrihi*, sound because of others. | Yes                                                           |
| **Ḥasan** (good, fair)  | As ṣaḥīḥ, but one narrator's precision is a little lighter.[22](#src-22) *Ḥasan li-ghayrihi* is a weak report lifted by corroboration.                     | Yes, for most jurists                                         |
| **Ḍaʿīf** (weak)        | Fails at least one condition.[21](#src-21) Weakness ranges from mild (a slightly careless narrator) to severe (a suspected liar).                          | Not on its own; see [below](#weak) for virtues                |
| **Mawḍūʿ** (fabricated) | Judged to be a forgery. Strictly it is not a hadith at all.                                                                                                | Never; transmitting it knowingly without warning is forbidden |

A word on *ḥasan*, because it causes real confusion. When al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892) wrote "this hadith is ḥasan" in his *Jāmiʿ*, he defined it himself at the end of the book, in the section known as *al-ʿIlal al-ṣaghīr*: roughly, a report with no narrator accused of lying, which is not anomalous, and which comes by more than one route.[23](#src-23) That is closer to what later scholars would call "ḥasan because of corroboration". The neat definition in the table above belongs to the later handbooks.[22](#src-22) It is, in substance, Ibn Ḥajar's formula in *Nukhbat al-fikar*: where a narrator's precision is lighter, the report is ḥasan in itself. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ had been less tidy. He described two kinds of ḥasan: a chain containing a little-known (*mastūr*) narrator who is neither careless nor accused of lying, where the text is also carried by another route; and a narrator well known for truthfulness who falls a little short of the ṣaḥīḥ narrators in memory and precision.[7](#src-7)[20](#src-20) Later teachers mapped the first onto *ḥasan li-ghayrihi* and the second onto *ḥasan li-dhātihi*.[25](#src-25) His definition of ḍaʿīf is simply a report that has neither the qualities of ṣaḥīḥ nor those of ḥasan.[21](#src-21)

Al-Tirmidhī also combines terms ("ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ", "ḥasan gharīb") in ways scholars still debate, so read his comment as his verdict in his vocabulary.

### How chains break

Much of the terminology simply names where and how a chain fails.[19](#src-19)[24](#src-24)

Mursal

A Successor (someone who met Companions but not the Prophet) says "the Prophet ﷺ said", skipping the Companion. Ḥanafī and Mālikī jurists often accepted them; the hadith specialists generally counted them weak.

Munqaṭiʿ

"Cut": one link is missing somewhere lower in the chain.

Muʿḍal

Two or more consecutive links are missing.

Mudallas

A narrator hides a gap by using a vague verb ("from so-and-so") for someone he did not hear the report from directly.

Shādhdh

A reliable narrator contradicts those more reliable.

Munkar

In later usage, a weak narrator contradicting the reliable, or a weak narrator's solitary report. As the al-Taymī example shows, early critics used the word more loosely.

Mawḍūʿ

Fabricated: established through a narrator known to lie, an admission of forgery, or a text that cannot be true.

## Judging the narrators: jarḥ wa taʿdīl

How did a scholar in the fifth century know whether a narrator of the second was precise? From a huge body of literature called *ʿilm al-rijāl*, "the science of men" (it includes many women), recording what earlier critics said about each transmitter. Criticising is *jarḥ* ("wounding"); vouching is *taʿdīl*. Critics tested narrators by comparing their reports with their peers' and checking their notebooks.

Three works you will see cited again and again:

- **Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī** (d. 327/938), *al-Jarḥ wa'l-Taʿdīl*: a large early collection of verdicts, much of it from his father Abū Ḥātim and Abū Zurʿa.
- **al-Dhahabī** (d. 748/1348), *Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl*: a dictionary of narrators about whom *any* criticism was voiced, with his own summary judgements.
- **Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī** (d. 852/1449), *Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb*: a compressed handbook giving each narrator of the Six Books a one-line grade on a twelve-level scale, from Companions at the top down to accused forgers.[8](#src-8)

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Lahīʿa (d. 174/790) was a judge of Egypt and a prolific narrator. Ibn Ḥajar's *Taqrīb* calls him *ṣadūq*, truthful, but adds that "he became confused after his books burned", and notes that reports taken from him earlier by Ibn al-Mubārak and Ibn Wahb are sounder. Al-Dhahabī, in *al-Kāshif*, is blunter: weak.[8](#src-8) So a chain through Ibn Lahīʿa is not thrown out, but it cannot stand alone. We will meet him again.

Critics did not always agree; some were strict, others lenient. That is why two competent people can look at the same chain and reach different grades.

## Judging the text

It is often said that Muslim scholars looked only at chains. Chain analysis dominates the written method, but that claim is not accurate.

The earliest example is often ʿĀʾisha. In [Bukhārī 1288](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1288?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), when told that ʿUmar and his son reported "the dead are punished for their family's weeping", she objects that the Prophet ﷺ did not say this of a believer, and quotes the Qurʾān: "No soul burdened with sin will bear the burden of another" ([35:18](https://quran.com/35/18?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)).[2](#src-2)[3](#src-3) She doubts the memory, not the honesty, of the narrators, because the wording clashes with scripture.

Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751/1350), in *al-Manār al-Munīf*, later listed signs of forgery visible in the text itself, such as extravagant rewards for trivial acts, contradiction of the Qurʾān or established sunna, and claims refuted by history.[24](#src-24) What is fair to say is that matn criticism was usually applied as a check alongside the chain, rather than as an independent tool that could overturn a chain every critic accepted.

## The Six Books and "it's in Bukhārī"

Sunni Muslims speak of the *Ṣaḥīḥayn*, the two Ṣaḥīḥs of [al-Bukhārī](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-collections/#bukhari) and [Muslim](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-collections/#muslim) (d. 261/875), and more broadly of the Six Books: those two plus the *Sunan* of Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Mājah. No council fixed the list; the sixth place was long contested with Mālik's *Muwaṭṭaʾ*, and Ibn Mājah's inclusion owes much to Ibn al-Qaysarānī (d. 507/1113).[9](#src-9)

The fullest academic account of how the two Ṣaḥīḥs rose to their status is Jonathan Brown's *The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim* (Brill, 2007). Brown gives a central role to al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī (d. 405/1014) and places the beginnings of a "canonical culture" in roughly 390–460/1000–1070, when the two books became a shared reference that scholars of different legal schools could all accept.[9](#src-9)

So "it's in Bukhārī" carries weight because generations of Sunni specialists examined these books more closely than any others and accepted their core material. That is a real argument, though not the same as saying no one ever questioned a line.

Al-Dāraquṭnī (d. 385/995), one of the sharpest critics in the tradition, wrote two short works on the pair. In *al-Ilzāmāt* he listed 109 narrations he thought met the authors' own standards and should have been included. In *al-Tatabbuʿ* he examined 217 narrations in the two books that he considered flawed.[10](#src-10)[11](#src-11) Brown's study of that book (*Journal of Islamic Studies*, 2004) shows his objections were technical, about which version of a chain was correct, never about the doctrine or law in a report.[10](#src-10) Ibn Ḥajar answered many of them for Bukhārī, and al-Nawawī for Muslim. Most Sunni scholars therefore hold the core of both books sound while granting that a small number of narrations were debated by the specialists themselves.

## Why the numbers never match

Readers often find that the same hadith carries one number on one website and a quite different one in a book or an older translation. Usually nothing is wrong. There are simply several numbering systems in use.

On sunnah.com each hadith page shows three lines. Take the Monday fasting hadith from Muslim, which comes up in every discussion of the Mawlid:

| Line on sunnah.com              | Value               | What it is                                                                          |
| ------------------------------- | ------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Reference                       | Sahih Muslim 1162e  | The standard Arabic numbering, for Muslim the system of Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī |
| In-book reference               | Book 13, Hadith 256 | Position within the chapter ("book") of the Arabic edition                          |
| USC-MSA web (English) reference | Book 6, Hadith 2606 | The older online English translation's numbering, widely copied                     |

The letter in "1162e" matters. ʿAbd al-Bāqī gave a single number to a hadith and all its parallel chains; sunnah.com adds letters (a, b, c...) to distinguish each chain Muslim lists under that number. So 1162e is the fifth version of report 1162, and the wording can differ from 1162a. When you cite Muslim, cite the letter.[4](#src-4)

The other collections have their own standard numberings, and older printed editions differ slightly. The safest citation is collection plus number, with a link.

## Modern graders: al-Albānī and after

The *Sunan* collections were never claimed to be wholly authentic; their authors included weak material, sometimes with a warning. In the twentieth century, Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (1914–1999), an Albanian-born scholar who worked in Damascus and later Amman, set out to grade the whole of that literature, report by report.

His output was enormous: *Silsilat al-Aḥādīth al-Ṣaḥīḥa* and its companion *Silsilat al-Aḥādīth al-Ḍaʿīfa wa'l-Mawḍūʿa*, *Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl*, and separate "ṣaḥīḥ" and "ḍaʿīf" volumes for Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Mājah. That is why "graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī" appears everywhere online.[13](#src-13)

He also has serious critics. Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Saqqāf, a Jordanian scholar, wrote *Tanāquḍāt al-Albānī al-Wāḍiḥāt*, listing cases where al-Albānī graded the same report differently in different books. The Egyptian hadith scholar Maḥmūd Saʿīd Mamdūḥ, in *al-Taʿrīf bi-Awhām man Qassama al-Sunan ilā Ṣaḥīḥ wa Ḍaʿīf*, challenged the whole idea of splitting the Sunan into two piles and argued that al-Albānī's methods departed from those of the earlier jurists and critics.[13](#src-13) Part of this debate is also about madhhab and theology, which is worth knowing when reading it.

Other modern names you will see: **Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ** (1928–2016), who led the team that edited and graded the *Musnad* of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal in 45 volumes, as well as other major collections;[14](#src-14) and on sunnah.com, **"Darussalam"**. That label refers to the grades printed in the Darussalam English editions of the Sunan, which the publisher attributes to the Pakistani scholar Zubair ʿAlī Zaʾī. His students say he later revised some views and did not review those editions, so read the line as one scholar's grading at one point.[15](#src-15)

### Three examples from this blog

**Ibn Mājah 1390**, "Allah looks down on the night of the middle of Shaʿbān and forgives all His creation except an idolater and one harbouring enmity." On sunnah.com the grade line reads *Ḍaʿīf (Darussalam)*. The chain runs through Ibn Lahīʿa, whom we met above. Al-Albānī, however, accepted the *content*: in *al-Silsila al-Ṣaḥīḥa* (no. 1144) he conceded that individual chains are weak but held that the many routes for this wording from several Companions strengthen one another to the level of ṣaḥīḥ.[5](#src-5)[12](#src-12) Other scholars, including the editors of IslamQA, do not think those routes are strong enough to lift one another.[12](#src-12) Both sides agree the Ibn Mājah chain is weak; they disagree about what corroboration can do. ([sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1390](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1390?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); see [The 15th of Shaʿbān](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-15th-of-shaban/).)

**Ibn Mājah 116**, the Ghadīr Khumm narration ending "O Allah, befriend whoever befriends him and be hostile to whoever is hostile to him". Grade line: *Ḍaʿīf (Darussalam)*. That verdict is on this particular chain. It is not a verdict on whether the Prophet ﷺ said "whoever I am his mawlā, ʿAlī is his mawlā", which comes through many other routes, one of them the next example.[5](#src-5)[6](#src-6) ([sunnah.com/ibnmajah:116](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:116?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com))

**Tirmidhī 3713**, "For whomever I am his mawlā, ʿAlī is his mawlā." Beneath the text al-Tirmidhī himself says: "this hadith is ḥasan gharīb". The sunnah.com grade line, separately, reads *Ṣaḥīḥ (Darussalam)*. Two judgements, eleven centuries apart, on one page.[6](#src-6) ([sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3713](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3713?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com))

## Weak hadith and virtuous deeds

Can you act on a weak hadith? For law, almost all Sunni scholars say no. For encouragement towards good deeds that are already established (*faḍāʾil al-aʿmāl*), the majority classical position has been more relaxed. Al-Nawawī says as much in the preface to his *Forty Hadith*.[16](#src-16)

The conditions most often quoted come from Ibn Ḥajar, as reported by his student al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497) in *al-Qawl al-Badīʿ*:[16](#src-16)

1. The weakness must not be severe: nothing from a known liar or someone accused of lying.
2. The deed must fall under a general principle already established in the Sharīʿa.
3. The person acting on it must not believe it to be established, so that nothing is attributed to the Prophet ﷺ that he did not say.

Others reject the allowance altogether. Names often cited for this stricter view include the Mālikī jurist Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabī,[26](#src-26) and in modern times al-Albānī argued forcefully that weak hadith should not be used even for virtues, both because the conditions are routinely ignored and because the sound material is more than enough.[26](#src-26) The debate keeps resurfacing around Shaʿbān and the Mawlid.

## The Shia science in brief

Twelver Shia hadith scholarship runs on parallel lines with its own books and its own narrator literature. The central collections are the Four Books:

- [*al-Kāfī*](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-collections/#kafi) of al-Kulaynī (d. 329/941)
- [*Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh*](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-collections/#faqih) of Ibn Bābawayh, known as al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq (d. 381/991)
- [*Tahdhīb al-Aḥkām*](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-collections/#tahdhib-al-ahkam) and [*al-Istibṣār*](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-collections/#istibsar), both by al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067)

For the early scholars "ṣaḥīḥ" meant a report they had good grounds to trust, whatever its chain. The fourfold, chain-based classification came later and is usually credited to Aḥmad ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 673/1274) and developed and popularised by his student al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325):[17](#src-17)

| Grade          | Definition                                                                                                           |
| -------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Ṣaḥīḥ**      | Every narrator up to the Infallible is an Imāmī (Twelver) Shia explicitly declared reliable.                         |
| **Ḥasan**      | Every narrator is Imāmī and praised, but not all are explicitly declared reliable.                                   |
| **Muwaththaq** | Narrators are declared reliable, but at least one was not an Imāmī (for example from another Shia sect, or a Sunni). |
| **Ḍaʿīf**      | Meets none of the above.                                                                                             |

Later scholars added refinements such as *qawī*. The key difference in outlook is that Twelver Uṣūlī scholars do not regard any book as wholly authentic, not even al-Kāfī.[17](#src-17) (The rival Akhbārī school, influential in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, did treat the Four Books as reliable throughout; it is now a minority.) Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1110/1699) graded al-Kāfī's reports one by one in his commentary *Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl*, and many of his grades are ḍaʿīf. A widely repeated tally for al-Kāfī's roughly 16,199 reports gives 5,072 ṣaḥīḥ, 144 ḥasan, 1,118 muwaththaq, 302 qawī and 9,485 ḍaʿīf. I have not been able to confirm from a primary source who first made that count (the al-Islam.org preface credits al-Shahīd al-Thānī; others derive it from al-Majlisī), so treat the figures as indicative.[18](#src-18)

"Ḍaʿīf" here is a statement about the chain; a jurist may still act on such a report if other evidence supports it. Shia scholars also test texts against the Qurʾān, a principle attributed to the Imams themselves. The background to the split is covered in [How Sunni and Shia Came to Be](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/how-sunni-and-shia-came-to-be/).

## Checking a hadith yourself

You do not need to be a scholar to check whether a citation is real and what the specialists said about it. Here is what I do.

1. **Get the collection and number.** "Narrated in Bukhārī" with no number is a start; a number is better. If there is no collection at all, be careful.
2. **Open it on sunnah.com.** The URL pattern is simple: sunnah.com/bukhari:1, sunnah.com/muslim:1162e, sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3713, sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1390.
3. **Find the grade line.** Bukhārī and Muslim have none on sunnah.com, because Sunni scholars accept both collections. For the Sunan, look for a line such as "Ḍaʿīf (Darussalam)"; the name in brackets is who graded it.
4. **Read the compiler's own comment**, especially in Tirmidhī. It may differ from the modern grade.
5. **If the grades disagree**, that is information, not a failure. It usually means corroboration is in dispute, as with Ibn Mājah 1390.

### Red flags

- No source given, or only "a hadith says".
- "Narrated by scholars" or "as the ʿulamāʾ report", with no collection.
- "It's in Tirmidhī" when al-Tirmidhī himself flags it as weak or *gharīb* directly beneath.
- Enormous rewards for small acts (an invented illustration: "pray two rakʿas tonight and receive the reward of seventy prophets").
- A grade with no grader named.
- Images and forwarded messages with Arabic text but no reference.

None of this makes anyone a muḥaddith. It does help separate "this chain is weak" from "the Prophet never said anything like this", a distinction that comes up in nearly every post on this site.

**Spotted a mistake, or know a better source?** I check and correct these pages when readers point things out. Please email [mohammad.siddiqui@icloud.com](mailto:mohammad.siddiqui@icloud.com?subject=Correction%3A%20How%20a%20Hadith%20Is%20Judged) with the passage, what you think is wrong, and your source (Qur'an reference, hadith with collection and number, or a book with page).

## Sources

1. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1: [sunnah.com/bukhari:1](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1907a: [sunnah.com/muslim:1907a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1907a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
2. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 110: [sunnah.com/bukhari:110](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:110?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); 1288: [sunnah.com/bukhari:1288](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1288?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
3. Qurʾān 35:18: [quran.com/35/18](https://quran.com/35/18?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
4. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1162e: [sunnah.com/muslim:1162e](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1162e?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
5. Sunan Ibn Mājah 1390: [sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1390](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1390?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); 116: [sunnah.com/ibnmajah:116](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:116?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
6. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3713: [sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3713](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3713?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
7. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, *Muqaddima* (*Maʿrifat anwāʿ ʿilm al-ḥadīth*), Arabic text: [first category (ṣaḥīḥ)](https://ar.wikisource.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%82%D8%AF%D9%85%D8%A9%5F%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86%5F%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AD/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%88%D8%B9%5F%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%88%D9%84?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) and [second category (ḥasan)](https://ar.wikisource.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%82%D8%AF%D9%85%D8%A9%5F%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86%5F%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AD/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%88%D8%B9%5F%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AB%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), Wikisource; see also [Arabic Wikipedia: Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ](https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%82%D8%AF%D9%85%D8%A9%5F%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86%5F%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AD?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
8. Narrator entries (Ibn Ḥajar, *Taqrīb*; al-Dhahabī): al-Maktaba al-Shāmila, [Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Taymī](https://shamela.ws/narrator/5443?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) and [ʿAbd Allāh ibn Lahīʿa](https://shamela.ws/narrator/3868?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
9. Jonathan A. C. Brown, *The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunnī Ḥadīth Canon* (Leiden: Brill, 2007): [author's page](https://drjonathanbrown.com/books/the-canonization-of-al-bukhari-and-muslim/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); [publisher](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/isbn/9789047420347/html?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
10. Jonathan A. C. Brown, "Criticism of the Proto-Hadith Canon: al-Dāraquṭnī's Adjustment of the Ṣaḥīḥayn", *Journal of Islamic Studies* 15:1 (2004): [OUP](https://academic.oup.com/jis/article/15/1/1/679321?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
11. Al-Dāraquṭnī, *al-Ilzāmāt* and *al-Tatabbuʿ* (109 and 217 narrations): [Wikipedia: al-Daraqutni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Daraqutni?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
12. Al-Albānī's grading of the mid-Shaʿbān hadith (*al-Silsila al-Ṣaḥīḥa* 1144) and a dissenting view: [IslamQA 140084](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/140084?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
13. Al-Albānī, life and works, and critics: [Wikipedia: al-Albani](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Albani?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); Maḥmūd Saʿīd Mamdūḥ's *al-Taʿrīf*: [attahawi.com](https://attahawi.com/2011/05/26/al-tarif-bi-awham-man-qassama-l-sunan-ila-sahih-wa-daif-by-mahmud-said-mamduh/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
14. Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu%27ayb%5Fal-Arna%27ut?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
15. On the "Darussalam" grades on sunnah.com and Zubair ʿAlī Zaʾī: [Salafi Research Institute](https://www.salafiri.com/darussalam%5Fsunnah/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
16. Ibn Ḥajar's three conditions via al-Sakhāwī, *al-Qawl al-Badīʿ*: [SeekersGuidance](https://seekersguidance.org/answers/general-answers-feeds/can-i-recite-a-prayer-from-a-weak-hadith/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
17. Shia classification and Aḥmad ibn Ṭāwūs: [WikiShia: Types of Hadiths](https://en.wikishia.net/view/Types%5Fof%5FHadiths?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); [WikiShia: Aḥmad b. Ṭāwūs](https://en.wikishia.net/view/Al-Sayyid%5FAhmad%5Fb.%5FTawus%5Fal-Hilli?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
18. Al-Kāfī tally: [al-Islam.org, preface to Selections from Uṣūl al-Kāfī](https://al-islam.org/al-tawhid/general-al-tawhid/selections-usul-al-kafi-al-kulayni/preface?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); al-Majlisī's commentary: [Wikipedia: Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir%27at%5Fal-Uqul?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
19. General terminology: [Wikipedia: Hadith terminology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith%5Fterminology?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
20. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, *An Introduction to the Science of the Ḥadīth: Kitāb Maʿrifat anwāʿ ʿilm al-ḥadīth*, trans. Eerik Dickinson (Reading: Garnet, 2005), [Google Books](https://books.google.com/books/about/An%5FIntroduction%5Fto%5Fthe%5FScience%5Fof%5Fthe.html?id=YU2CEs0OvaQC&ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
21. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's definition of ḍaʿīf, quoted and explained in Khālid al-Lāḥim, *Sharḥ Ikhtiṣār ʿulūm al-ḥadīth*, chapter on the third category: [al-Maktaba al-Shāmila](https://shamela.ws/book/2066/106?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); the three definitions side by side: Islamweb fatwa 58345, [islamweb.net](https://www.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/58345/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Arabic)
22. Ibn Ḥajar, *Nukhbat al-fikar*, "if precision is lighter, it is ḥasan in itself": ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Bāz, lesson on *Nuzhat al-naẓar*, [binbaz.org.sa](https://binbaz.org.sa/audios/1884/02-%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%82%D9%88%D9%84%D9%87-%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AE%D9%81-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B6%D8%A8%D8%B7-%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B3%D9%86-%D9%84%D8%B0%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%87?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Arabic)
23. Al-Tirmidhī's own definition of ḥasan in *al-ʿIlal al-ṣaghīr*, quoted and discussed in Mohammad Akram Nadwi, "Maʿnā al-ḥadīth al-ḥasan", League of Syrian Scholars, [islamsyria.com](https://islamsyria.com/articles/%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AB-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B3%D9%86?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Arabic)
24. Jonathan A. C. Brown, *Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World*, 2nd ed. (London: Oneworld, 2018), [review in the American Journal of Islam and Society](https://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/575?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
25. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's division of ḥasan into ḥasan li-ghayrihi and ḥasan li-dhātihi, as taught in Abū al-Ashbāl al-Zuhayrī, *Sharḥ al-Bāʿith al-ḥathīth*: [al-Maktaba al-Shāmila](https://shamela.ws/book/37066/22?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Arabic)
26. Islam Question & Answer, "Our attitude concerning daʿīf (weak) ahaadeeth which speak of good deeds", quoting Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabī and citing al-Albānī's introduction to *Ṣaḥīḥ al-Targhīb wa-l-Tarhīb* (1/47–67): [islamqa.info 44877](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/44877?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
27. Islamweb Fatwa Centre, "Seek knowledge even if it was in China", fatwa 92268, 1 August 2006, quoting al-Bayhaqī, Ibn Ḥibbān (via al-Munāwī), Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Dhahabī and al-Albānī: [islamweb.net 92268](https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/92268/seek-knowledge-even-if-it-was-in-china?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
28. Islam Question & Answer, "'Seek knowledge even if you have to go as far as China' is a false hadeeth", answer 13637, citing al-Albānī, *Ḍaʿīf al-Jāmiʿ* 906, and his grading of Ibn Mājah 224 in *Ṣaḥīḥ Sunan Ibn Mājah*: [islamqa.info 13637](https://islamqa.info/en/13637?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
29. Ḥusām al-Dīn ʿAfāna, *Fatāwā yasʾalūnaka*, "Uṭlubū al-ʿilm wa-law fī al-Ṣīn laysa ḥadīthan", on the narrators (al-ʿUqaylī, Ibn ʿAdī), Abū ʿĀtika, Ibn Ḥibbān, Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Albānī's *Silsilat al-aḥādīth al-ḍaʿīfa*, vol. 1: [al-Maktaba al-Shāmila](https://shamela.ws/book/9087/849?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Arabic)
30. Sunan Ibn Mājah 224, chain through Ḥafṣ ibn Sulaymān from Kathīr ibn Shinẓīr from Ibn Sīrīn from Anas, graded ḍaʿīf jiddan (chain) by Darussalam: [sunnah.com/ibnmajah:224](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:224?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
31. Qurʾān 49:6, trans. Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*: [quran.com/49/6](https://quran.com/49/6?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
32. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 5 (Introduction, narration 6), from Abū Hurayra, in Muslim's *Ṣaḥīḥ*: [sunnah.com/muslim:5](https://sunnah.com/muslim:5?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)

Related reading

- [The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-quran/): revelation, compilation and preservation of the text
- [Muhammad ﷺ: A Life](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/prophet-muhammad/): from Mecca to Medina, with a timeline and family tree
- [The People Around Muhammad ﷺ: Companions, Wives and Family](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/companions/): short sourced profiles of those closest to him
- [The Sunna in Daily Life](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/sunna-in-daily-life/): the Prophet's everyday habits, and which reports are sound
- [Riba: A study in evidence](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/riba-a-study-in-evidence/): interest and home loans across all four schools
- [The Mawlid Sourcebook](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-mawlid-sourcebook-2/): the verses, hadith and scholars on each side
- [How Sunni and Shia Came to Be](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/how-sunni-and-shia-came-to-be/): Ghadīr, the Saqīfa and what followed
- [The 15th of Shaʿbān: What the Texts Say](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-15th-of-shaban/): which narrations about the night hold up
- [Islamic Schools of Thought: The Complete Tree](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/): every madhhab, creed and movement on one interactive map
- [Salafism: Origins, Beliefs and the Arguments Around It](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/salafism/): its creed, and the disputes over innovation
- [The People Behind the Hadith: Narrators, Chains and How They Were Judged](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-narrators-and-chains/): five real isnāds to step through
- [The Hadith Collections: A Complete Tree](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-collections/): who compiled al-Bukhārī, Muslim, al-Kāfī and the rest
- [Every Hadith on This Site: An Index](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-index/): each report quoted here, with its grade