Do Not Approve Them, and Do Not Disapprove Them

Isrāʾīliyyāt are the stories of the People of the Book. We learned them through some of the Christians and the Jews who became Muslim. Some of the Christians and the Jews who became Muslim were scholars before; when they became Muslim, they brought some of these stories with them into Islam.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said in the beginning: do not speak about the stories of Banū Isrāʾīl, al-Isrāʾīliyyāt — these stories that come from the old scripture. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: don't speak about them. But then after that, towards the end of the life of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), he said: ḥaddithū ʿan Banī Isrāʾīla wa lā ḥaraj — speak about Banū Isrāʾīl. But then he said: lā tuṣaddiqūhum wa lā tukadhdhibūhum — do not believe them, and do not disapprove. Do not approve those stories, and do not disapprove them.

What does this mean? It means we could use them sometimes, but we should not take them as certain knowledge. And at the same time, if it does not contradict anything in Islam, we shouldn't completely reject it. That's why many of the scholars say it is safe to stay away from many of these stories. And that is what I'm going to try to do; and whenever I do mention one of these stories, I'll mention it and mention to you that this is from al-Isrāʾīliyyāt, so that you know.

And Ibn Taymiyyah did mention that we could use al-Isrāʾīliyyāt as supplementary evidence, but not as primary evidence. You cannot use it as a dalīl, as a primary evidence. But we could use it as istiʾnās: you bring it along under an established thing in Islam, an established evidence, and you could then use some of these stories.