Hadith

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Hadith (الحديث transliteration: al-ḥadīth/ "Talk Nabawi") are oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hadith collections are regarded as important tools for determining the Sunnah, or Muslim way of life, by all traditional schools of jurisprudence. The Arabic plural is aḥādīth (أحاديث). In English academic usage, hadith is often both singular and plural.

Contents

Linguistically the word ‘hadith’ (حَدِيْث) means: that which is new from amongst things or a piece of information conveyed either in a small quantity or large. The plural form is ahaadeeth (أَحادِيْث)… And hadith is what is spoken by the speaker (الحديث ما يحدِّثُ به المُحَدِّثُ تَحْدِيْثًا). Tahdith(تَحْدِيْث) is the infinitive, or verbal noun, of the original verb form (حَدَّثَ). Therefore, hadith is not the infinitive,[1] rather it is a noun.[2]

In religious terminology, hadith is the term given to a statement, action, or affirmation attributed to the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad.[3] The relationship between the linguistic meaning and the terminology is perhaps apparent in the statement of the prominent hadith specialist Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Hajr Al-Asqalani (773 AH/1372 CE -- 852 AH/1448 CE) that the intended meaning of hadith in religious tradition is something attributed to the Prophet, as though in contrast to the Quran, which has preceded it.[4] Hadith can be divided into three categories based upon their content:

  1. A statement of the Prophet (قَوْل).
  2. An action of the Prophet (فِعْل).
  3. The Prophet’s affirmation of an action done by someone other than him (تَقْرِير).

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. [5] The sanad consists of a ‘chain’ of the narrators each mentioning the one from whom they heard the hadith until mentioning the originator of the matn along with the matn itself. The first people who received hadith were the 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 thus conveying it to those after them and so on. So 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 him (after the Follower) would then say, “I heard someone say, ‘I heard a Companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet …’’” and so on.[6]

Ahadith were originally an oral tradition relevant to the actions and customs of Muhammad. Starting with the first Fitna of the 7th century those receiving ahadith started to question their sources.[7] This resulted in a list of transmitters, for example "A told me that B told him that Muhammad said." This list of the chain of testimony by which a hadith was transmitted is called an Isnad. The text itself came to be known as Matn.

The hadith were eventually recorded in written form, had their Isnad evaluated and were gathered into large collections mostly during the reign of Umar II (bin Abdul Aziz, grandson of Umar bin Khattab(RAA)2nd Caliph) during 8th century, something that solidified in the 9th century. These works are still today referred to in matters of Islamic law and History.

Main article: History of Hadith

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

The overwhelming majority of Muslims consider hadith to be essential supplements to and clarifications of the Qur'an, Islam's holy book. In Islamic jurisprudence, the Qur'an contains many rules for the behavior expected of Muslims. However, there are many matters of concern, both religious and practical, on which there are no specific Qur'anic rules. Muslims believe that they can look at the way of life, or sunnah, of Muhammad and his companions to discover what to imitate and what to avoid. Muslim scholars also find it useful to know how Muhammad or his companions explained the revelations, or upon what occasion Muhammad received them. Sometimes this will clarify a passage that otherwise seems obscure. Hadith are a source for Islamic history and biography. For the vast majority of devout Muslims, authentic hadith are also a source of religious inspiration.

However, some contemporary Muslims argue that the Qur'an alone is sufficient. Examples of such Muslims groups are Tolu-e-Islam (Resurgence of Islam), Free Minds, and United Submitters International. Muslims who take the "Qur'an alone" viewpoint are regarded as deviant by mainstream Muslim scholars, and by the vast majority of Muslims. Hadith-trusting Muslims argue that many Qur'anic instructions are impossible to fulfill without guidance from the ahadith. (The Qur'an does not, for example, specify how many prayer cycles constitute fulfillment of each of the daily prayers. See salat.) It is also important to note that most Muslims claim that the Qur'an cannot be fully explained by itself alone or read with complete understanding -- which is why the Hadith is referred to as the "second source" of Islam. While the Qur'an states "We have made it (the Qur'an) easy to understand and in your own tongue (language) may you take heed." (Qur'an 44:58), there are great debates between Muslims regarding the views stated in the Qur'an, and also those stated in the Hadith.

The origins of some verses and statements in the Hadith cannot be verified as regards their source of origin.

Muslim scholars classify hadith relating to Muhammad as follows:

  • What Muhammad said (قول) (qawl)
  • What Muhammad did (فعل) (fi'l)
  • What Muhammad approved (تقرير) (taqrir) in others' actions

There are also hadith relating to the words and deeds of the companions, but they may not have the same weight as those about Muhammad. Many actually believe that the Hadith was written hundreds of years after Muhammed died.

Non-Muslim scholars note that there is a great overlap between the records of early Islamic traditions. Accounts of early Islam are also to be found in:

  • sira (stories, especially biographies of Muhammad)
  • tafsir (commentary on the Qur'an)
  • fiqh (jurisprudence)

Some of these accounts are also found as hadith; some aren't. For a Non-Muslim historian, these are all simply historical sources; for the Muslim scholar, hadith have a special status. They cite sura [Qur'an 7:157] (Yusuf Ali translation):

“ Those who follow the messenger, the unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in their own (scriptures),- in the Law and the Gospel;- for he commands them what is just and forbids them what is evil; he allows them as lawful what is good (and pure) and prohibits them from what is bad (and impure); He releases them from their heavy burdens and from the yokes that are upon them. So it is those who believe in him, honour him, help him, and follow the light which is sent down with him,- it is they who will prosper. ”

They take this and other Qur'anic verses to require Muslims to follow authentic hadith. However, a growing number of "Quran-only" Muslims disagree with this view and interpret these verses differently; they argue that the hadith are of human creation and have no authority.

Their argument is strengthened by verses of the Quran which criticise the following of "hadith other than quran", the Arabic word "hadith" means "sayings".

Main article: science of hadith

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The most common technique 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 to make sure they met) and if the transmitters are reliable.

Main article: List of Muslim reports

Anas (r.a.) relates that the Holy Prophet said: Allah says: When a servant of Mine advances towards Me a foot, I advance towards him a yard and when he advances towards Me a yard, I advance towards him the length of his arms spread out. When he comes to Me walking, I come to him running. (Bokhari)

Abu Bakr Siddique relates: When the Holy Prophet and I were in the cave and we were tracked by the Meccans I saw their feet above us right outside the cave and I said: Messenger of Allah, if one of them were to look down below his feet he would see us. He said: Abu Bakr, what would you think of two with whom Allah is the third? (Bokhari and Muslim).

Umar relates that he heard the Holy Prophet say: Were you to put your complete trust in Allah, He would provide for you as He provides for the birds. They issue forth hungry in the morning and return filled in the evening (Tirmidhi).

It is related by Hadhrat Wabisa bin Ma'bad (pbuh) that I went to the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) and He asked me, "Have you come to me to ask about The Virtue?" I said, "Yes". He replied, "For this you should consult your own heart. Virtue is for what your heart is satisfied and you're content with it. And the sin is what your heart deprecated and you disapprove of it even if others recommend it to you." (Musnad Ahmad)

Abdullah ibn Umar relates that the Holy Prophet said: Allah, the Lord of honour and glory, will accept the repentance of His servant till his death-rattle begins . (Tirmidhi)

Abu Hurairah (r.a.) relates that the Holy Prophet said: He who removes from a believer his distress in this world will have his distress of the Day of Judgment removed by Allah. He who eases the hardship of another, will have ease bestowed upon him by Allah in this world and the next. (Muslim)

Anas (r.a.) relates that the Holy Prophet said: If a youth honours an older person on account of his age, Allah appoints someone who would honour him in his old age.(Tirmidhi)

Abu Bakarah Thaqfi has related that the Holy Prophet said: When two Muslims confront each other with swords and one is killed, both end in hell. I said: Messenger of Allah, as to the one who kills it is understandable; but why the other? The other was also eager to kill his opponent (Bokhari and Muslim).

Hasan ibn Ali (r.a) relates that he learnt the following from the Holy Prophet (sa): Leave alone that which involves thee in doubt and adhere to that which is free from doubt, for truth is comforting and falsehood is disturbing. (Tirmidhi)

Abu Hurairah has related that the Holy Prophet (sa) said: Allah does not regard your bodies and looks, but looks at your hearts (Muslim)

Talha ibn Ubaidullah (r.a.) relates that on seeing a new moon the Holy Prophet (sa) would supplicate: Allah do thou cause the appearance of this moon to be harbinger of peace, faith, security and Islam for us. Thy Lord, O moon, and mine is Allah. May this be a moon presaging guidance and good. (Tirmidhi)

Abu Musa Ash'ari (r.a) relates that the Holy Prophet (sa) said: Allah will continue to hold out His hand at night so that he who has sinned during the day might repent, and to hold out His hand during the day so that he who has sinned at night might repent, till the sun should rise from the west (Muslim)

Abu Sa'id Khudri (r.a) relates that the Holy Prophet (sa) said: The world is green and pleasant. Allah made you His vicegerents in it, so that He might show you how to react to it. So beware of the beguilement of the world and the women. The first trial of the Bani Israel was through women (Muslim).

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)

Currently there is little communication between the world of Muslim hadith scholarship and Western academia. Muslim scholars reject the Westerners as Orientalists who are hostile to religion in general and Islam in particular. Western academics tend to dismiss Muslim scholars as irrelevant, bound as they are to a millennia-old technique of hadith evaluations which modern scholarship regards as out-dated.

However, some Muslim scholars have undergone Western academic training and attempted to mediate between the traditional Muslim and the secular Western view. Notable among these was Fazlur Rahman (1919-1988) who argued that while the chain of transmission of the hadith may often be spurious, the content, the matn, can still be used to understand how Islam can be lived in the modern world. Liberal movements within Islam tend to agree with Rahman's views to varying degrees.

Muslims who accept hadith believe that trusted hadith are in most cases the words of Muhammad and not the word of God, like the Qur'an. Hadith Qudsi forms a partial exception; these (few) hadith are said to recount divine revelations given to Muhammad but not included in the Qur'an. However, the words (as opposed to the substance) are believed to Muhammad's own, and not divinely inspired.

While both hadith and Qur'an have been translated, most Muslims believe that translations of the Qur'an are inherently deficient, amounting to little more than a commentary upon the text. There is no such belief regarding hadith. Practicing Muslims cleanse themselves (wudu) before reading or reciting the Qur'an; there is no such requirement for reading or reciting the hadith. Even for Muslims who accept the hadith, they are lower in rank when compared to the Qur'an.

The Sunni canon of hadith took its final form more than 230 years after the death of Muhammad (632 CE). Later scholars may have debated the authenticity of particular hadith but the authority of the canon as a whole was not questioned. This canon, called the Six major Hadith collections, includes:

Name Collector Size
Sahih Bukhari Imam Bukhari (d. 870) 7275 hadiths
Sahih Muslim Muslim Ibn al-Hajjaj (d. 875) included 9200
Sunan Abi Da'ud Abu Da'ud (d. 888)
Sunan al-Tirmidhi al-Tirmidhi (d. 892)
Sunan al-Sughra al-Nasa'i (d. 915)
Sunan Ibn Maja Ibn Maja (d. 886)

Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim are usually considered the most reliable of these collections. There is some debate over whether the sixth member of this canon should be Ibn Maja or the Muwatta of Imam Malik, which is the earliest hadith canon but predates much of the methodology developed by the classic hadith scholars.

While there are still many traditional Muslims who rely on the ulema and its long tradition of hadith collection and criticism, other contemporary Sunni Muslims are willing to reconsider tradition. Liberal Muslims are most apt to trust the individual conscience, but there are also Salafis who demand the same freedom. The Salafis claim that the ordinary believer can trust his or her own judgment (even if he or she is not trained in Islamic scholarship) if he or she relies on Bukhari and Muslim, the commentators deemed to be most correct (sahih), and ignores the weak hadith.

Shi'a Muslims trust traditions transmitted by Muhammad's descendants through Fatima Zahra. There are various branches within Shi'a Islam and within each branch, various traditions of scholarship. Each branch, and each scholar, may differ as to the hadith to be accepted as reliable and those to be rejected.

Four prominent Shi'a hadith collections are:

Name Collector Size
Usul al-Kafi Shaykh Abu Ja`far Muhammad ibn Ya`qub al-Kulayni al-Razi 16,099 musnad (documented) hadith
Man la yahduruhu al-Faqih Shaykh Saduq Abu Ja`far Muhammad ibn `Ali ibn Babwayhi al-Qummi 9,044
Al-Tahdhib Shaykh Tusi 13,590
Al-Istibsar Shaykh Tusi 5,511

It should be noted that Shi'a scholars do not believe that everything in the four major books are sahih. Every hadith must be individually examined through the process of ilm-ul-hadith. Any hadith that conflicts with the Quran or logic is immediately thrown out. [8]

Ibadi Islam (found mainly in the Arabian kingdom of Oman) accepts many Sunni hadith, while rejecting others, and accepts some hadith not accepted by Sunnis. Ibadi jurisprudence is based only on the hadith accepted by Ibadis, which are far less numerous than those accepted by Sunnis. Several of Ibadism's founding figures - in particular Jabir ibn Zayd - were noted for their hadith research, and Jabir ibn Zayd is accepted as a reliable narrator by Sunni scholars as well as Ibadi ones.

The principal hadith collection accepted by Ibadis is al-Jami'i al-Sahih, also called Musnad al-Rabi ibn Habib, as rearranged by Abu Ya'qub Yusuf b. Ibrahim al-Warijlani. A large proportion of its narrations are via Jabir ibn Zaid or Abu Yaqub; most are reported by Sunnis, while several are not. The total number of hadith it contains is 1005, and an Ibadi tradition recounted by al-Rabi has it that there are only 4000 authentic prophetic hadith. The rules used for determining the reliability of a hadith are given by Abu Ya'qub al-Warijlani, and are largely similar to those used by Sunnis; they criticise some of the companions (sahaba), believing that some were corrupted after the reign of the first two caliphs. The Ibadi jurists accept hadith narrating the words of Muhammad's companions as a third basis for legal rulings, alongside the Qur'an and hadith relating Muhammad's words.

Early Western exploration of Islam consisted primarily of translation of the Qur'an and a few histories, often supplemented with disparaging commentary. In the nineteenth century, scholars made greater attempts at impartiality, and translated and commented upon a greater variety of texts. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Western scholars of Islam started to critically engage with the Islamic texts, subjecting them to the same agnostic, searching scrutiny that had previously been applied to Christian texts (see higher criticism). Ignaz Goldziher is the best known of these turn-of-the-century iconoclasts, who also included D. S. Margoliuth, Henri Lammens, and Leone Caetani. Goldziher writes, in his Muslim Studies:

“ ... it is not surprising that, among the hotly debated controversial issues of Islam, whether political or doctrinal, there is not one in which the champions of the various views are unable to cite a number of traditions, all equipped with imposing isnads ”

The next generations of Western scholars were also sceptics, on the whole: Joseph Schacht, in his Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (1959), argued that isnads going back to Muhammad were in fact more likely to be spurious than isnads going back to the companions. John Wansbrough, in the 1970s, and his students Patricia Crone and Michael Cook were even more sweeping in their dismissal of Muslim tradition, arguing that even the Qur'an was likely to have been collected later than claimed.

Contemporary Western scholars of hadith include:

Madelung has immersed himself in the hadith literature and has made his own selection and evaluation of tradition. Having done this, he is much more willing to trust hadith than many of his contemporaries.

Some quotes:

  • Wilferd Madelung[9]
“ work with the narrative sources, both those that have been available to historians for a long time and others which have been published recently, made it plain that their wholesale rejection as late fiction is unjustified and that with [not without] a judicious use of them, a much more reliable and accurate portrait of the period can be drawn than has been realized so far. ”

Harald Motzki:[10]

“ the mere fact that ahadith and asanid were forged must not lead us to conclude that all of them are fictitious or that the genuine and the spurious cannot be distinguished with some degree of certainty. ”

Gregor Schoeler:[11]

“ The current research on the life of Muhammad is characterized by the fact that two groups of researchers stand directly opposed to one another: The one group advocates, somewhat aggressively, the conviction that all transmitted traditions, in part because of great inner contradictions, legendary forms, and so forth, are to be rejected. The other group is opposed to that view. According to these researchers, the Islamic transmission, despite all these defects, has at least a genuine core, which can be recognized using the appropriate source-critical methods. The difficulty certainly consists of finding criteria by which the genuine is to be differentiated from the spurious. ”

The hadith Ahmed, Vol. 1, page 171 says: "Do not write down anything of me except the Qur'an. Whoever writes other than that should delete it." Some have interpreted this as the Hadith should never have been written. Companions used memory in the early time to transfer Hadith.

However, according to most scholars and researchers, this hadith was specific to the time when the Qur'an was still being written. The reason behind this command was to prevent any risk of confusing the Qur'an with Hadith. However, once the revelation was completed and it was certain that no more verses were going to be descended, it was permissible; and even an obligation to write down the Hadith to preserve it throughout time, because, had the memorisers of the Hadith passed away before writing it down, the Hadiths could have disappeared.

Muslims have been ordered to follow the Sunna of Muhammad because it is an order clearly stated in the Qur'an in several places such as in Surah al-Imran (3) verses 32 and 132, Surah an-Nisa' (4) verse 59, Surah al-Maidah (5) verse 92, Surah al-Anfal (8) verses 1, 20, 46, Surah an-Noor (24) verses 54, 56, Surah Muhammad (47) verse 33, etc. (IslamiCity.com)

  1. ^ Lisan al-Arab, by Ibn Manthour, vol. 2, pg. 350; Dar al-Hadith edition.
  2. ^ al-Kuliyat by Abu al-Baqa’ al-Kafawi, pg. 370; Al-Resalah Publishers. This last phrase is quoted by al-Qasimi in Qawaid al-Tahdith, pg. 61; Dar al-Nafais.
  3. ^ Qawaid al-Tahdith, pg. 61.
  4. ^ Fath al-Bari, vol. 1, pg. 193 (page number of the original Maktabah al-Salafiyah edition as appears in the Dar Taibah printing). Al-Suyuti quotes this in his Tadrib al-Rawi, vol. 1, pg. 42 (Dar al-Asimah edition).
  5. ^ Tadrib al-Rawi, vol. 1, pgs. 39-41 with abridgement; I left out the majority if not the entirety of the etymology of each term. Suyuti refers this discussion to either both Tibi and Ibn Jama’ah or one to the exception of the other; for details refer to the text.
  6. ^ Ilm al-Rijal wa Ahimiyatih, by Mualami, pg. 16, Dar al-Rayah. I substituted the word ‘sunnah’ with the word ‘hadith’ as they are synonymous in this context.
  7. ^ http://people.uncw.edu/bergh/par246/L21RHadithCriticism.htm
  8. ^ http://al-islam.org/short/alhadith/Pages/Page1.html#forged
  9. ^ The Succession to Muhammad, page xi
  10. ^ http://people.uncw.edu/bergh/par246/L21RHadithCriticism.htm
  11. ^ Gregor Schoeler, Berg (2003), p. 21

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