Imam an-Nawawi, may Allah show mercy to him, never intended merely to record forty ahadith in a book and release them to the public. The book which he wrote was his collection of forty-two ahadith together with the absolute minimum of fiqh and linguistic commentary which he felt necessary for people not to misunderstand the import of these ahadith. Ibn ‘Uyaynah said, “Ahadith are misleading except to those who have fiqh.” Ibn Wahb said, “Every man of hadith who has no imam in fiqh is astray. If Allah had not rescued us by Malik and al-Layth we would have gone astray.”