Sufyan ibn Uyaynah said:
“ Hadith are a pitfall except for the Fuqaha’ {Legal Jurists},”
Imam Malik’s رحمه الله companion and friend `Abd Allah ibn Wahb رحمه الله said:
“The meaning of every Hadith is a pitfall except for the Ulamah {scholars}, means that every memorizer of Hadith that does not have an Imam in Fiqh {Law} is misguided , and if Allah had not rescued us with Imam Malik رحمه الله and al-Layth {ibn Sa’id} رحمه الله, we would have been misguided.”
Ibn Abi Zayd رحمه الله continues and comments:
“ What Sufyan رحمه الله means is that other than the jurists might take something in its external meaning when, in fact, it is interpreted in the light of another hadith or some evidence which remains hidden to him; or it may in fact consist in discarded evidence due to some other {abrogating} evidence. None can meet the responsibility of knowing this except those who deepened their learning and obtained Fiqh.”
Imam ash-Shafi’i رحمه الله said:
“You {the scholars of Hadîth} are the pharmacists but we {the jurists} are the physicians.”
Mullah Ali al-Qari رحمه الله commented on this and said:
“The early scholars said:
The Hadith scholar without knowledge of Fiqh is like a seller of drugs who is no physician: he has them but he does not know what to do with them; and the Fiqh scholar without knowledge of hadîth is like a physician without drugs: he knows what constitutes a remedy, but does not have it available.”
{Mu`taqad Abi Hanifata al-Imam fî Abaway ar-Rasul `Alayhis-Salat wa as-Salam {pg. 42}