The tail of the tongue of the balance - Hatim Al-Ouni

The sciences of the noble Sunnah that the scholars of this nation established are a miracle and extraordinary against customs; they would not have been possible except by the decree of Allah the Almighty, with the support of this religion! And among the sciences of the Sunnah, the most dangerous: the science of criticism and modification, and knowing who’s narration is accepted or rejected; because it is the science through which the transmission is scrutinized, and on which the critique of news is based. From its rulings, the light of the Sunnah shines in the hearts of the Sunnah, so they distinguished the Sunnah from others. The imams of hadith and their critics exerted their utmost effort in the science of criticism and modification, delved into the narrators’ news, researched their conditions, and documented them, some of which (or some of each other) are unknown to some nations. They compiled books on the biographies of narrators and their history, and excelled in diversifying classification, and mastered that creativity.