Are these 2 hadithes about harming and questions on day of judgement authentic? Who are Darussalam and are they reliable? Why contradict with Islamqa?

Question

The hadith are:

First hadith:

It was narrated from 'Ubadah bin Samit that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) ruled: “There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm."

^{— Ibn Majah, 2340}

This is also stated in Ibn Majah, 2341 which is from Ibn Abbas.

Generally, Islamqa doesn't cite any da'if (weak) hadith. They stated this hadith in their website without any reference, while stating the ruling on smoking, what they usually don't do. However, it's found in the book of hadith.

But with regards to this hadith of both isnaad, Sunnah.com said,

Grade : Da'if (Darussalam)

^{— Ibn Majah, 2340, Ibn Majah, 2341}

So is there anyone who classed it as Sahih (authentic), and who are they? And who classed it as Da'if (weak)? And where?

Second hadith:

Abu Barzah Al-Aslami narrated that the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) said: "The feet of the slave of Allah shall not move [on the Day of Judgement] until he is asked about five things: about his life and what he did with it, about his knowledge and what he did with it, about his wealth and how he earned it and where he spent it on, about his body and for what did he wear it out."

^{— Timidhi, English reference, Vol. 4, Book 11, Hadith 2417; Arabic reference, Book 37, Hadith 2602}

This is the same case. Islamqa cited it in the same page mentioned above, without any reference what they usually don't do. However, it's also found in the book of hadith. And it's not only Islamqa who cites this hadith, rather I've listened the hadith from different places.

But Sunnah.com said,

Grade : Da'if (Darussalam)

^{— Timidhi, English reference, Vol. 4, Book 11, Hadith 2417; Arabic reference, Book 37, Hadith 2602}

With regards to this hadith, my questions is same as the above. Is there anyone who classed it as Sahih (authentic), and who are they? And who classed it as Da'if (weak)? And where?

But the fact is, all of this differences is raised and dissimilarities are found when the grade of the hadith is by Darussalam. It's not the only place where such dissimilarities are seen, rather in many cases, I have observed the same thing when the grade is by Darussalam.

Sometimes I feel it, unreliable to rely upon sunnah.com with regards to the grade of hadith, when it is by Darussalam.

Because, the Hadith regarding Salatul Tasbih was classed as Sahih by Sunnah.com with the grade by Darussalam. But Islamqa proved it to be wrong in here and here.

And there are many incident like this that made the grade of hadith declared by sunnah.com with the reference of Darussalam, disputed, I think.

So it's requested to answer the questions with reliable references.

Answer 1

This comparison is apples to oranges.

Sunnah.com is a useful tool but limited in its scope in the following ways:

1. It gives the view of just a single scholar for each hadith. Often scholars differ when it comes to classification of hadith. The site doesn't get into the specifics to indicate whether the view given is the majority or minority opinion one way or the other.
2. The site's focus is to give you the classification of a single hadith one at a time (its chain and content). As a result, they don't have the bandwidth to go further into concepts of hadith science such as comparing collaborating narrations that all strengthen each other, thereby making the 'weak' hadith strong enough to technically be acceptable.

In contrast, scholars who are at a level to give fatawa have studied these things comprehensively and thus are able to give a comprehensive answer; they will reference what is acceptable and are not going to delve into the chain every time they reference something. That would take away from the focus of the fatwa!

I agree with you that IslamQA generally gives good answers derived from authentic/acceptable references. On the other hand, it's not correct to claim Sunnah.com is unreliable. Just remember what I said above.

As for the hadith you quoted:

• Regarding the "neither harming nor reciprocating harm", this is also narrated in Muwatta Malik 1435. The scholarly commentary on 40 Hadith Nawawi say the hadith are hasan and strengthen each other. And this site does a good job explaining why the hadith reaches "hasan" level.

• The Tirmidhi hadith about the five questions are authentic according to Al Albani.

Answer 2

If we focus the question on whether the hadith qualification on sunnah.com are more or less reliable than those on islamqa. Instead of discussing each hadith you've quoted by itself there's still some ambiguity, but the matter is rather answerable.

We have on one hand a hadith database: sunnah.com and on the other hand a fatwa site: islamqa.
Both sites have a different objective or focus:

• While a fatwa site usually gives rather opinion-based answers on questions (based on a hopefully deep knowledge on their topic).
• A database usually only delivers the information without any qualification.

Let's explain more with a focus on the given sites:

• islamqa: is a site that primarily represents a salafi view and therefore fatwas on this site primarily are based on the qur'an and sunnah. This includes also dai'f ahadith as they are considered a better source of knowledge than analogy or whatever tools scholars may use. Basically if a text exists the text has a higher value than any human reflection or logic etc (as this is a part of osool al-fiqh for this school of jurisprudence). Nevertheless islamqa also may chose to present different opinions of scholars on a matter or verify the authenticity of a hadith.
• sunnah.com: is a database but the authors have chosen to add some qualification of ahadith for those hadith compilations excluding the two sahih books of imam al-Bukhari and Muslim.

Comparing these two sites therefore doesn't make any sense.

In my opinion sunnah.com might have done a mistake by adding some specific qualification for ahadith. As scholars of hadith have a certain disagreement on what is sahih and what isn't even if the later generations of scholars could come to a certain agreement on the terminology of the qualification which was not present in early days. For example if at-Tirmidhi says a hadith is hassan gharib this doesn't mean it is hassan by the modern terminology. Gharib in the terminology of at-Tirmidhi is a wide term it can be related to the matn (content) of the hadith (strange wording compared to a stronger narration, wording that sounds weird or even doubtful) or to the sanad (narrator chain) which might either be gharib which means ahaad or have some issue in the chain.
While gharib is mostly used to refer to a kind of ahaad narrations.

To get a good qualification of a hadith you need to check whether or not scholars (or better a majority of scholars) could come to an agreement about its qualification. And this might only apply for very weak or (very) sane ahadith else you will certainly find a great scholar who may disagree with his colleagues. So neither the qualifications of al-Albani nor those of az-Za'i alone are reliable. That's why the qualification added in the database of sunnah.com might be misleading in some cases. While certainly some qualifications given on islamqa might also be refuted, rejected or discussed by other scholars of the uloom al-Hadith.