Question
I have heard that the work of the Tablighi Jamaat is wrong and books like Fazaaile Aamaal that we use is unreliable, is this work Sunnah and if so could you some Hadiths that support this.
Answer
The work of Tabilighi Jamaat is not wrong. The truth is they are a movement that has guided thousands of people and brought alive many sunnas in the lives of Muslims. In a time when the Muslims have left Dawah, one of the greatest duties of Islam, this movement has kept the torch burning throughout the World. As for the book Fazail-e-Aamal, by Shaikh Muhammad Zakariya, it is a book of the Ahl-Sunna wal-Jamaah and is reliable in the category of encouraging to good deeds.
Scholars classically, such as Imam Ibn Salah and Imam Nawawi, have always stated there is leeway in quoting weak hadith in teaching the virtues of acts. Many people do not realize that there is a big difference between weak and fabricated (mawdu) hadith which has always been accepted by the scholars.
The latter is a pure lie and the former has the possibility of being true, but there is some weakness in the chain. Scholars like Imam Suyuti are also known to have followed the methodology of Shaikh Zakariyya in narrating hadith. Thus, even if there are some weak narrations in this book, this does not mean it cannot be read or benefited from, as there is no book that is free from defects except the Book of Allah taala.



