Hadith - Authentic sayings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W)

 

Definition: A report of authentic sayings & the actions of our Beloved Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) together with its authentic chain of narration back to the first person who heard or seen the Prophet perform or say the acts that we follow.

 

A brief history of the Hadith:

Traditions regarding the life of Muhammad and the early history of Islam were passed down orally for more than a hundred years after the death of Muhammad (s.a.w) in 632.
 

Muslim historians say that it was the Caliph Uthman (the third caliph, or successor of Muhammad, who had formerly been Muhammad's secretary), who first urged Muslims both to write down the Qur'an in a fixed form, and to write down the hadith. Uthman's labors were cut short by his assassination, at the hands of aggrieved soldiers, in 656

The Muslim community then fell into a prolonged civil war, termed the Fitna by Muslim historians. After the fourth caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib, was assassinated, control of the Islamic empire was seized by the Umayyad Dynasty in 661.

 

610s CE

There were very few Arabs that could read or write in the beginning of Muhammad's era: The majority were unlettered, and according to muslim traditions, so was Muhammad. When the Qur’an began to be revealed, its first verse contained the command to read. Thus, a desire to learn to read and write was aroused among the Arabs, and Muhammad encouraged them to do so. One example of Muslims reading from the Qur'an is Fatimah bint al-khattab.

Despite this, there are very few hadith from that period. As an explanation, muslims cite hadith were Muhammad is quoted as "Do not write anything belonging to me. Whoever has written something received from me outside the Qur’an let him destroy it" and other hadith, arguing that Muhammad feared that it would be confused with the ongoing "revelation" and collection of the Qur'an.

620s CE

Among the prisnors of war taken at the battle of badr those who were literate were released after each taught ten Muslims how to read and write.

Sahi bukhari states that Abd-Allah ibn Amr wrote down his hadith. As reported from himself, ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Amr used to write down whatever he heard from Muhammad. Some people said to him: ‘You are writing down every-thing coming from the mouth of Muhammad. Muhammad is a human being. There are times when he is angered and times when he is pleased.’ ‘Abdullah referred the matter to Muhammad, who answered him, pointing to his mouth: Write down, for, I swear by Him in Whose hand is my life, nothing comes out from this except truth.

A man came to Muhammad and complained about his memory, saying: ‘O Messenger of Allah: We hear many things from you. But most of them slip our minds because we cannot memorize them’. Muhammad replied: Ask your right hand for help. Muhammad meant that he should write down what he heard.

When Rafi‘ ibn Khadij asked Muhammad whether they could write what they heard from him, the answer came: Write, no harm! Another sources quotes Muhammad advising: Record knowledge by writing.

During the conquest of Makkah, Muhammad gave a sermon. A man from the Yemen, named Abu Shah, stood up and said: ‘O Allah’s Messenger! Please write down these [words] for me!’ Muhammad ordered: Write down for Abu Shah!

Muhammad sent a letter which contained commandments about the blood money for murders and injuries and the law of retaliation to Amr ibn hizam. This letter was handed down to his great grandson, Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad. Among other things, like some of his letters other head of states, some scroll transferred to Abu Rafi was handed down to Abu Bakr ibn Abd-Arahman ibn Harith, belonging to the first generation after the Companions.

630s CE

Among Sunnis, Umar ibn Al-Khattab is the primary locus for many accounts about hadith collection. He is portrayed by Sunnis as desiring to initiate this project but as unwilling to do so, fearing that Muslims might then neglect the Qur'an.

Umar is also said by muslims that he due to fear and concerns, he sometimes warned people against careless narration of hadith.

650s CE

Starting the first islamic civil war of the 7th century, those receiving the hadith started to question the sources of the saying, something that resulted in the development of the Isnad.

 

690s CE

Ibn Abbas left behind a camel-load of books, which mostly contain what he had heard from Muhammad and other Sahabah.

8th century

Ummayad rule was interrupted by a second civil war (the Second Fitna), re-established, then ended in 758, when the Abbasid Dynasty seized the caliphate, to hold it, at least in name, until 1258.

Muslim historians say that hadith collection and evaluation continued during the first Fitna and the Umayyad period. However, much of this activity was presumably oral transmission from early Muslims to later collectors, or from teachers to students. If any of these early scholars committed any of these collections to writing, they have not survived. The histories and hadith collections we possess today were written down at the start of the Abbasid period, more than one hundred years after the death of Muhammad.

The scholars of the Abbasid period were faced with a huge corpus of miscellaneous traditions, some of them flatly contradicting each other. Many of these traditions supported differing views on a variety of controversial matters. Scholars had to decide which hadith were to be trusted as authentic narrations and which had been invented for various political or theological purposes. For this purpose, they used a number of techniques which Muslims now call the science of hadith.

710s CE

Generally, Umar II is credited with having ordered the first collection of hadith material in an official manner, fearing that some of it might be lost. Abu bakr ibn muhammad ibn hazm and ibn shihab al-zuhri, are among those who compiled hadiths at `Umar II’s behest.

750s CE

In 134AH (751–752), paper was introduced into the Muslim world

9th century

The efforts culminated with the six canonical collections after having received impetus from the establishment of the sunna as the second source of law in Islam, particularly through the efforts of the famous jurist Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i.

The method of criticism and the conclusions it has reached have not changed significantly since the ninth century. Even much of modern Muslim scholarship, while continuing to debate the validity or authenticity of individual hadiths or perhaps the hadiths of a particular transmitter, employs the same methods and biographical (or rijal) materials.

810s

 

• Muhammad ibn idris al-Shafi'i

9th century

The classification of Hadith into Sahih (sound), Hasan (good) and Da'if (weak) was firmly established by Ali ibn Al-Madini (d. 234AH).

Later, al-Madini's student Muhammad Al-Bukhari (d. 256AH.) authored a collection that he stated contained only Sahih hadith.

Al-tirmidhi (d. 279AH) was the first traditionist to base his book on al-Madini's classification.

13th century

• Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi
• Ibn al-Nafis

19th century

In 1848, Gustav Weill, noted that Muhammad al-Bukhari deemed only 4,000 of his original 600,000 hadiths to be authentic and argued that a European critic was required to reject without hesitation at least half of these 4,000. He was soon followed by Aloys Sprenger, who also suggests that many of the hadiths cannot be considered authentic.

20th century

Ignaz Goldziher was a large contributor of innovative theories to the West. The subsequent direction the Western debate took, a direction which has focussed on the role of hadiths in the origin and development of early Muslim jurisprudence, is largely due to the work of Joseph Schacht. The Common-Link Theory, invented by Joseph Schacht and widely accepted in modern scholarship, argues that hadith authorities knowingly and purposefully placed traditions in circulation with little care to support these hadiths with satisfactory isnads (chains of transmitters). G. H. A. Juynboll, Michael Cook and other Schachtians subsequently embraced and elaborated upon this theory. In 2006, Fahad A. Alhomoudi in his thesis “On the Common-Link Theory”challenges the accuracy of Schacht’s founding theory.Because of the interconnectedness of Schacht’s many theses about hadith and Islamic law, the findings of Alhomoudi’s thesis did not only challenge the significant Common-Link Theory in legal hadith studies, but also open the door for scholars to question other important theories held by Schacht and his followers with regard to larger issues in Islamic legal history.

21st century

 

The Turkish government's Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı has commissioned a team of scholars at Ankara University to draft a new compilation of the hadith that follows a liberal interpretation of Islam, and that would omit numerous hadith considered historically inauthentic by these scholars.

 

Science of hadith

 

The Science of hadith is the process that Muslim scholars use to evaluate hadith. It has been described by one hadith specialist, Jalal al-Din Abd al-al-Rahman al-Suyuti, as the science of the principles by which the conditions of both the sanad, the chain of narration, and the matn, the text of the hadith, are known. This science is concerned with the sanad and the matn with its objective being distinguishing the sahih, authentic, from other than it. Ibn Hajr said the preferred definition is: knowledge of the principles by which the condition of the narrator and the narrated are determined.

The Importance of the Science of Hadith

 

“Certainly the science of hadith is from the best of the virtuous sciences as well as the most beneficial of the various disciplines,” said Uthman ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Shahrazuri, commonly known as Ibn al-Salah, in the introduction to his widely influential Introduction to the Science of Hadith (Ulum al-Hadith). “It is preferred by the noble from amongst men and is tended to by those scholars concerned with verifying the correct from the incorrect and those of complete scholarship; only those who are debased and lowly dislike it. It is the science most pervasive in respect to the other sciences in their various branches, in particular to jurisprudence being the most important of them.” “The intended meaning of ‘other sciences’ here are those pertaining to religion,” explains Ibn Hajr, “Quranic exegesis, hadith, and jurisprudence. [The science of hadith] became the most pervasive due to the need displayed by each of these three sciences. [The need] hadith has [of its science] is apparent. As for Quranic exegesis, then the preferred manner of explaining the speech of Allah is by means of what has been accepted as a statement of His Prophet . The one looking to this is in need of distinguishing the acceptable from the unacceptable. Regarding jurisprudence, then the jurist is in need of citing as an evidence the acceptable to the exception of the later, something only possible utilizing the science of hadith.”

 

The classification of Hadith into Sahih (sound or authentic), Hasan (good) and Da'if (weak) was utilized early in hadith scholarship by Ali ibn al-Madini(161-234 AH).  Later, al-Madini's student Muhammad al-Bukhari (810-870) authored a collection, now known as Sahih Bukhari, commonly accepted by Muslim scholars to be the most authentic collection of hadith, followed by that of his student Muslim ibn Hajjaj. Al-Bukhari's methods of testing hadiths and isnads are seen as exemplary of the developing methodology of hadith scholarship. I. A. Ahmad writes:

"The vagueness of ancient historians about their sources stands in stark contrast to the insistence that scholars such as Bukhari and Muslim manifested in knowing every member in a chain of transmission and examining their reliability. They published their findings, which were then subjected to additional scrutiny by future scholars for consistency with each other and the Qur'an.

The Sanad and the Matn

 

The sanad and matn are the primary elements of a hadith. The sanad is the information provided regarding the route by which the matn has been reached. It is so named due to the reliance of the hadith specialists upon it in determining the authenticity or weakness of a hadith. The term sanad is synonymous with the similar term isnad. The matn is the actual wording of the hadith by which its meaning is established, or stated differently, the objective at which the sanad arrives at consisting of speech. The sanad consists of a ‘chain’ of the narrators each mentioning the one from whom they heard the hadith until mentioning the originator of matn along with the matn itself. The first people who received hadith were the Prophets's Companions; so they preserved and understood it, knowing both its generality and particulars, and then conveyed it to those after them as they were commanded. Then the generation following them, the Followers, received it and then conveyed it to those after them and so on. Thus, the Companion would say, “I heard the Prophet say such and such.” The Follower would then say, “I heard a Companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet .’” The one after the Follower would then say, “I heard someone say, ‘I heard a Companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet …’’” and so on.

[The Importance of the Sanad

Much has been said about the importance of the sanad by the early religious scholars. For example, according to an early Quranic exegete, Matr al-Warraq, the verse from the Quran, “Or a remnant of knowledge,” refers to the isnad of the hadith. In addition, Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak said, “The isnad is from the religion; were it not for the isnad anyone could say anything they wanted.” According to Ibn al-Salah the sanad was originated within the Muslim scholastic community and remains unique to it. Ibn Hazm specified this claim by adding that the connected, continuous sanad is, in fact, particular to the religion of Islam. He elaborated that the sanad was utilized by the Jewish community, however with a break in it of more than thirty generations between them and Moses.

The practice of paying particular attention to the sanad can be traced to the generation following that of the Companions based upon the statement of Muhammad ibn Sirin, “They did not previously inquire about the isnad. However, after the turmoil occurred they would say, ‘Name for us your narrators.’ So the people of the Sunnah would have their hadith accepted and the people of innovation would not.” Those who were not given to require a sanad were, in the stronger of two opinions, the Companions of the Prophet, while others, such as al-Qurtubi, include the older of the Followers as well. This is due to the Companions all being considered upright, trustworthy transmitters of hadith such that a mursal hadith narrated by a Companion is acceptable, as the elided narrator, being a Companion, is known to be acceptable. Al-Khateeb al-Bagdadi, stating likewise, cited various evidences for this, from them, the Quranic verse, “And you were the best nation brought about to mankind.” 

Ilm ar-Rijal

 

lm ar-Rijal is the "science of biography". It relates to detailed study of the narrators who make up the sanad. “The first to speak regarding the condition of a narrator was the Quran, then the Prophet and then His Companions. The verses are numerous that praise the Companions and criticize the hypocrites, both as a group and specific individuals from amongst them – as well as criticism of specific individuals other than the hypocrites. The most well known of these is a verse of the Quran stating, “Oh you who believe, if a wrongdoer should approach you conveying information, then verify that so as not to fall into ignorance thus regretting what you have done.”  While this verse was revealed regarding a particular individual, it is a general principle.” The earliest remarks cited in the books of Rijal go back to a host of Followers, followed by those after them until the period of the Sahah Sattah, a period covering the first to the third centuries AH.

Comments about individual narators can include:

• "Imam (leader), Hafiz (preserver)."
• "Reliable, trustworthy."
• "Makes mistakes."
• "Weak."
• "Abandoned (by the traditionists)."
• "Liar, used to fabricate ahadith."

This resulted in individual verdicts on each of the narrators of hadith.

 

Historical method

 

The most common historical method used in the science of hadith consists of a careful examination of the isnad, or chain of transmission. Each hadith is accompanied by an isnad: A heard it from B who heard it from C who heard it from a companion of Muhammad. Isnads are carefully scrutinized to see if the chain is possible (for example, making sure that all transmitters and transmittees were known to be alive and living in the same area at the time of transmission) and if the transmitters are reliable. The scholars reject as unreliable people reported to have lied (at any point), as well as people reputed to be heedless (and thus likely to misunderstand the saying).

Hadith that were not thrown out as having been fabricated (maudu') were usually sorted into three categories:

• "authentic" (sahih, the best category)
• "fair" (hasan, the middle category)
• "weak" (da'if, the least category)

Some of the hadith were further distinguished by later scholars as mutawatir, or successive. The sayings or events reported in these hadith were attested by so many witnesses, albeit through different isnads, that it was thought inconceivable that these hadith could be forgeries.

 

Patricia Crone a skeptic of established Islamic history has stated:

"One of the biggest problems with the method of authentication by isnads is early traditionists were still developing the conventions of the isnad. They either gave no isnads, or gave isnads that were sketchy or deficient by later standards. Scholars who adhered strictly to the latest standards might find themselves rejecting or deprecating what was in fact the very earliest historical material, while accepting later, fabricated traditions that clothed themselves with impeccable isnads". (Roman, provincial and Islamic Law, Patricia Crone, pp. 23-34 of the paperback edition)

For more clarification here is a modern scholar's view; Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a Senior Lecturer and an Islamic Scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

"The fundamental Islamic sources such as the Qur'an and the core traditions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) have been fully preserved intact. This can be demonstrated easily by referring to the sound historical methodologies in verifying the sources.

There is a basic distinction between Islam and other religions in this regard: Islam is singularly unique among the world religions in the fact that in order to preserve the sources of their religion, the Muslims invented a scientific methodology based on precise rules for gathering data and verifying them. As it has been said, 'Isnad or documentation is part of Islamic religion, and if it had not been for isnad, everybody would have said whatever he wanted.'

So, there is no comparison between the sources of Islam and those of other religions in this respect, as you will never find anything comparable to the many sciences Muslims invented for this noble task of preserving the sources of Islam. By virtue of such sciences, you can scrutinize and verify every report in the sources.

In this context, it should be added that the process of recording Hadith started as early as the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Actually, many Companions recorded hadiths, and, `Abdullah ibn `Amr, for example, was permitted and even encouraged by the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) to write down Hadith. In addition, some 50 Companions and many Successors are said to have possessed manuscripts (sahifah, Arabic plural suhuf), which was used as a term to designate compendia of Hadith that emerged during the century before the formation of the classical collections. For more elaboration, you can read about the stages of recording Hadith."

A Concise History of Muslim Literature Pertaining to the Science of Hadith

 

As in any Islamic discipline there is a rich history of literature describing the principles and fine points of the science of hadith. Ibn Hajr provides a summation of this development with the following: “Works authored in the terminology of the people of hadeeth have become plentiful from the Imaams both old and contemporary:

1. From the first of those who authored a work on this subject is the Judge, Aboo Muhammad ar-Ramahurmuzee in his book, ‘al-Muhaddith al-Faasil,’ however, it was not comprehensive.
2. And al-Haakim, Aboo Abd Allah an-Naysaabooree, however, it was neither refined nor well arranged.
3. And following him, Aboo Nu’aym al-Asbahaanee, who wrote a mustakhraj upon the book of the later, (compiling the same narrations al-Hakim cited using his own sanads.) However, some things remain in need of correction.
4. And then came al-Khateeb Aboo Bakr al-Bagdaadee, authoring works in the various disciplines of the science of hadith a book entitled ‘al-Kifaayah’ and in its etiquettes a book entitled ‘al-Jaami’ee Li’Aadaab ash-Sheikh wa as-Saami’. Scarce is the discipline from the disciplines of the science of hadeeth that he has not written an individual book regarding, as al-Haafith Aboo Bakr ibn Nuqtah said: “Every objective person knows that the scholars of hadeeth coming after al-Khateeb are indebted to his works.” After them came others, following al-Khateeb, taking their share from this science :
5. al-Qaadee ‘Eyaad compiled a concise book naming it ‘al-Ilmaa’.’
6. Aboo Hafs al-Mayyaanajiyy a work giving it the title ‘Ma Laa yasu al-Muhaddith Jahluhu’ or ‘That Which a Hadeeth Scholar is Not Allowed Ignorance Of.’ There are numerous examples of this which have gained popularity and were expanded upon seeking to make plentiful the knowledge relating to these books and others abridged making easy their understanding.
7. This was prior to the coming of the memorizer and jurist Taqiyy ad-Deen Aboo ‘Amrin ‘Uthmaan ibn as-Salaah ‘Abd ar-Rahmaan ash-Shahruzuuree, who settled in Damascus. He gathered, at the time he had become a teacher of hadith at the Ashrafiyyah school, his well known book, editing the various disciplines mentioned in it. He dictated it piecemeal and, as a result, did not succeed in providing it with an appropriate order. He occupied himself with the various works of al-Khateeb, gathering his assorted studies, adding to them from other sources the essence of their benefits. So he combined in his book what had been spread throughout books other than it. It is due to this that people have focused their attention upon it, following its example. Innumerable are those who rendered his book into poetry, abridged it, sought to complete what had been left out of it or left out any extraneous information; as well as those who opposed him in some aspect of his work or supported him.

 

 Mulm Six major collections
(Al-Sihah al-Sittah):

1. Sahih al-Bukhari
2. Sahih Muslim
3. Sunan an-Nasa'i al-Sughra
4. Sunan Abi Dawood
5. Sunan al-Tirmidhi
6. Sunan Ibn Maja