By far the most persistent defense for employing unreliable Hadiths, however, was not a justification at all. Rather, it was a simple statement about the ulama’s distinction between areas of their religion that merited a strict regime of accuracy and those where such a regime might constrict benefits. Ibn Hanbal drew on the words of one of his teachers when he stated, ‘If Hadiths are related to us from the Prophet concerning rulings of the Shariah and what is licit and prohibited, we are rigorous with the chains of transmission.’ ‘But if we are told Hadiths dealing with the virtues of actions,
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