The Sign of a Fabricated (Mawdu‘) Hadith

Question

There is a certain narrator (rawi) against whom severe criticisms (jarh) have been made, such as “kana yakdhibu” (“he used to lie”) and “kana yada‘u al-hadith” (“he used to fabricate hadith”). He narrates a certain hadith, and no other narrator corroborates or follows him (mutaba‘a). [He is] neither thiqa (trustworthy) nor [merely] da‘if (weak in the ordinary sense). Can such a narrator’s hadith, in that case, be judged mawdu‘ (fabricated) or near-mawdu‘ — severely weak (shadid al-da‘f) — or not?

Answer

The status of such a narration Shaykh al-Islam [Ibn Hajar] described as follows: [ar]وَذَكَرَ شَيْخُ الْإِسْلَامِ لَهُ ثَلَاثَةَ شُرُوطٍ: أَحَدُهَا أَنْ يَكُونَ الضَّعْفُ غَيْرَ شَدِيدٍ، فَيَخْرُجُ مَنِ انْفَرَدَ مِنَ الْكَذَّابِينَ وَالْمُتَّهَمِينَ بِالْكَذِبِ وَمَنْ فَحُشَ غَلَطُهُ (نَقَلَ الْعَلَائِيُّ الِاتِّفَاقَ عَلَيْهِ)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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