Stealing from a Thief is Lawful , And the Hadiths in the Book Al-Kaba'ir

Question :

Is this Hadith authentic: "To steal from a thief is lawful!" And are the Hadiths in the book Al-Kaba'ir authentic?

Answer:

The Hadith you mentioned has no basis for it, and in fact, it is not a Hadith. Stealing is unlawful, whether it is from the true owner or it is from the thief. But if one knows for certainty that a certain item is stolen, one may secretly take it from the thief in order to return it to the owner, and there is no harm in this.

Imam Ath-Thahabi, who is one of the greatest of Hadith scholars, wrote the book you mentioned. But because much of the subject matter consists of warning Muslims against sinning, he was lenient when he mentioned some weak Hadiths and certain stories, even though most of what he relates is either Sahih or Hasan. He only mentioned those weak narrations from which no ruling could be derived, in terms of lawful and unlawful. So there is no harm in reading and benefiting from this book.

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