An innovator whose innovation plainly amounts to disbelief1 is a disbeliever by agreement.
An innovator whose innovation entails disbelief but who is mistaken at root through misinterpretation2 is the subject of disagreement.3 This is the position of Shams al-Dīn al-Aṣfahānī, and it is alluded to by Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd and Ibn Ḥajar.4
After this: the narration of an innovator is unconditionally rejected in the view of Imām Mālik.5
In the view of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, Abū Yūsuf and Imām al-Shāfiʿī: it is not accepted if the innovator deems lying lawful.
In the view of Imām Aḥmad and most of the muḥaddithūn: it is not accepted if he is a dāʿiya (caller to his innovation).
In the view of Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar: it is not accepted if he is a dāʿiya, or if, even without being a dāʿiya, he transmits what reinforces his own innovation.6
Such as claiming that Allāh, may He be exalted, has a son (we seek refuge with Allāh from such a claim), or denying the existence of Paradise and Hell. [tr.] ↩
Such as taking the verses that describe Allāh's hand to mean a literal physical hand, based on a mistaken interpretation of the Qurʾān or ḥadīth. [tr.] ↩
Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, Imām al-Rāzī, al-Qāḍī al-Bayḍāwī, al-Tāj al-Subkī and others accepted (such a man's narration), while al-Qāḍī Abū Bakr and al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār rejected it. See: al-Kifāya, p. 160; al-Maḥṣūl, 4/396; Kashf al-Asrār, 3/39; al-Ibhāj, 2/244; Nihāyat al-Sūl, p. 167. ↩
Innovation is an impugnment of ʿadāla, and yet the muḥaddithūn did not treat the innovator as they treated others whose uprightness was impugned. Al-Sharīf Ḥātim al-ʿAwnī takes up the difficulty in his Sharḥ al-Mūqiẓa, pp. 253 to 261. What accounts for the difference, in his view, is that the mubtadiʿ is mutaʾawwil, a man who has misread the evidence rather than made light of the religion: "we stipulated ʿadāla only to guarantee that the narrator would not lie about the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ" «لم نشترط العدالة إلا لضمان عدم وقوع الراوي في الكذب على رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم» (p. 253), and that guarantee holds in his case as well. He distinguishes accordingly the muʿānid, who persists after the proof has been made plain to him and whose ḥadīth is rejected, from the mutaʾawwil, whose narration is accepted on the single condition that he not relate a munkar ḥadīth supporting his innovation (p. 256). Leaving off narration from the dāʿiya belongs, on this view, to shunning and disciplining him rather than to any doubt about his report (p. 260); where he alone preserves a sunnah, the narration is taken from him. [tr.] ↩
Note, however, that some aḥādīth from mubtadiʿīn are nevertheless found in the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Imām Mālik. For example, Mālik narrates from Dāwūd ibn al-Ḥuṣayn, who was associated with Khārijī views, and from Thawr ibn Zayd al-Dīlī, who was accused of qadar; questioned about this, Mālik is reported to have said that they would sooner fall from heaven to earth than tell a single lie, «إنهم كانوا لأن يخروا من السماء إلى الأرض أسهل عليهم من أن يكذبوا كذبة» (al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, 4/417, where the report is given in the editor's note on Thawr ibn Zayd, quoting al-Barqī's Ṭabaqāt). [tr.] ↩
Sharḥ Mukhtaṣar Ibn al-Ḥājib, 1/692; al-Iqtirāḥ, pp. 291 to 293; Sharḥ al-Nukhba, pp. 71 to 72; al-Kifāya, p. 160 and pp. 168 to 170. ↩
Positions on what to do when the teacher (aṣl) denies a narration that the student (farʿ) attributes to him.
Al-mursal in its broad sense was not rejected by anyone until Imām al-Shāfiʿī; the Ḥanafīs differ over the mursal of the first three generations.
Al-mawḍūʿ is that which has been concocted and fabricated. It is known by four indications, and may not be narrated to one who knows its condition without disclosure.
When the addition of a thiqah narrator is accepted: positions of al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Ḥibbān, Muslim, al-Ḥākim and the Ḥanafīs, with the majlis distinction.
