We live in the Internet age. People go to websites to get information. Then, they pass on that information without fully understanding it.
To make matters worse, the website authors either hide certain pieces of information as it is detrimental to the case they are trying to build or are ignorant of it themselves.
You will often find websites quote a hadiith and say:
Imaam al-Haythami said: Its narrators are reliable
They do this to give you the impression the hadiith is authentic.
This is not true
What do scholars mean when they say its narrators are reliable (
رجاله الثقات)
Ibn Hajar says commenting on a hadiith in al-talkhiis al-habiir Volume 3 Page 48:
The hadith Ibn al-Qattaan declared as authentic is defective in my opinion because if its narrators are reliable
that does not necessitate that the hadiith is authentic.
al-Mubaarakfuurii says in al-Tuhfah al-'ahwadhi Volume 2 Page 9:
When al-Haythami says its narrators are reliable that is not evidence that the Hadiith is authentic because of the possibility that there may be a Mudallis who narrated it by means of anana or their is a narrator in the chain who began to mix up things later in life and his companion narrated from him after his mix up or there is someone in the chain who narrated from a narrator he did not meet or there is a defect in the chain or the hadiith is shaadha.
الزيلعي said in
نصب الراية Volume 1 Page 263: And if we suppose that its chain consists of reliable narrators,
that does not necessitate that the hadiith is authentic until we acertain that the hadith has no defect and is not shaadha.
Sheikh al-albaani said:
When a scholar of hadiith says in regards to a hadiith that its narrators are the narrators of the Sahiih or its narrators are reliable or something similar, that does not ensure that the chain is Sahiih as opposed to what most assume [Saahiiha Volume 1 Page 214 under hadiith No. 104]
For a hadiith to be authentic it
must pass additional criteria.
Please keep this in mind when someone just tells you the narrators of this hadiith are reliable or are the narrators of the Sahiih.
Additional references(s):
هل قول (رجاله رجال الصحيح) في الحديث يفيد صحته
Does the saying its rijaal are the rijaal of al-Sahiih mean it is authentic
أشهر الاحاديث المكذوبة
From 3:32 onwards