Discarding Hadith Narrators Who Showed Loyalty to Oppressors

In the jurisprudential compendium al-Intiṣār, under Chapter 6: On Wuḍūʾ and a Mention of Its Particular Characteristics (page 741), Imām Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamza (d. 749 AH / 1348 CE) examines the evidences cited by those who consider wiping over the khuffs (leather socks) permissible.

He reviews a key hadith used to support this view, reported by Jarīr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Bajalī, and critiques it on four distinct grounds. Among these, he highlights Jarīr’s later political alignment: Jarīr showed loyalty to Muʿāwiya after Muʿāwiya’s manifest enmity and armed conflict against Imām ʿAlī (peace be upon him).

Because of this, Imām Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamza argues that Jarīr’s ʿadāla (integrity and reliability as a transmitter) is compromised. And even if one refrains from labeling him a fāsiq due to his allegiance to an individual whose fisq is established, his narrations should nonetheless be dropped and set aside, given the gravity of the matter.

From this, we can extract his underlying principle: a narrator’s political and moral loyalties form part of his ʿadāla, and loyalty to oppression nullifies reliability in transmission.