Shaath is a class of weak Hadeeth
27-10-2014 | IslamWeb
Question:
Asalam Alaikum. My question is about Shaz Hadith,,is Shaz Hadith acceptable?what is the defination?and kindly give the refrances of difirent muhadissen who gave daleel in favour that it is acceptalr and who are against not accpetable???kindly send me the daleel of both eaither it is consider zaeef ?
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
The Shaath (irregular) Hadeeth is the Hadeeth narrated by a trustworthy narrator but it differs from the narration of other trustworthy narrators (This difference may be either in Sanad [chain of transmission] or in Matan [text]); Ash-Shaafi‘i 
said: “It is when a trustworthy person narrates a Hadeeth that goes against the narration of others, and it is not that he narrates what others did not narrate.” [End of quote] For more benfit, please refer to Fatwa 86127.
It is among the types of Dha‘eef (weak) Hadeeth, and the scholars have different opinions on the permissibility of acting according to a weak Hadeeth. The preponderant opinion according to the researching scholars is that it is permissible to act according to a Dha‘eef Hadeeth and use it as evidence for virtuous acts and in (the genre of) Targheeb wa At-Tarheeb (divine incentives and threats for doing right and avoiding wrong) if it falls under a principle or a comprehensive text of the revealed texts.
The Khateeb Ash-Shirbeeni said in Mughni al-Muhtaaj: "It is a condition in acting according to a weak Hadeeth in virtuous deeds that the Hadeeth should not be very weak, and that it should fall under a general principle and one should not believe that it is a part of the Sunnah.” [End of quote]
For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 86128, 41058 and 166199.
Also, a judgment on a given Hadeeth being Saheeh (sound) or Dha‘eef (weak) is acceptable if it comes from a qualified scholar, whether an early scholar or a contemporary one, but the judgments of the early scholars are given precedence due to the vastness of their knowledge and their ready-wittedness. Shaykh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said: “In fact, the early (scholars) who came before the collection of these books were much more knowledgeable about the Sunnah than the latecomers, because much of what reached them and was authentically narrated from them may not reach us except from an unknown person or with an interrupted chain of narrators, or it may not reach us at all. So, their books were their chests which contained much more than what is in these books, and anyone who is aware of the issue has no doubt about this.” [End of quote]