All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, is His Slave and Messenger.
We have clarified that Al-Albaani was a Hadeeth scholar and that he criticized some of the Ahaadeeth presented in the Saheeh collections of Al-Bukhari and Muslim as did others like Ad-Daaraqutni. The similarity between Al-Albaani and Ad-Daaraqutni in this regard is with respect to them both criticizing some of those Ahaadeeth. We did not mean by that that Ad-Daaraqutni declared any of the Ahaadeeth in Saheeh collections Al-Bukhari and Muslim weak or inauthentic. The point is that Ad-Daaraqutni criticized the fact that they did not meet some of the criteria that they set for their Hadeeth collections, as they committed themselves to a very rigorous degree of authenticity. Imaam An-Nawawi wrote,
“A group (of Hadeeth scholars) remarked about some Ahaadeeth presented in Al-Bukhari and Muslim in which they violated the criteria set by them, and that some Ahaadeeth were less committed to the standards set by them. ... Those remarks, or most of them, have been refuted.” [Introduction to Sharh Saheeh Muslim]
However, this does not mean that Ad-Daaraqutni overtly rejected the Ahaadeeth presented in Al-Bukhari and Muslim and declared them inauthentic.
We have previously underlined that Shaykh Al-Albaani was a Mujtahid (a scholar qualified to use personal judgment). He would receive two rewards if he was right and one reward if he was wrong. His criticism of the Ahaadeeth he declared inauthentic is not necessarily correct.
Allaah Knows best.