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Hadith ( ) are 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 (). In English academic usage, hadith is often both singular and plural.

Types of hadith

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.

Western 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 (juristic reasoning)

Some of these accounts are also found as hadith; some aren't. For a Western historian, these are all simply historical sources; for the Muslim scholar, hadith have a special status. They cite sura :

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. (Yusuf Ali translation)

They take this and other Qur'anic verses to require Muslims to follow authentic hadith. However, a small 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.

Examples of Hadith

  • “The first thing created by God was the intellect.”

  • “The ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the martyr.”

  • “One learned man is harder on the devil than a thousand worshippers.”

  • “Riches are not from an abundance of worldly goods, but from a contended mind.”

  • “He who wishes to enter the paradise at the best door must please his mother and father.”

  • “No man is a true believer unless he desires for his brother that he desires for himself.”

  • “When the bier of anyone passes by you, whether Jew, Christian, or Muslim, rise to your feet.”

  • “The thing which is lawful but is disliked by God is divorce.”

  • “Heaven lies at the feet of mothers.”

  • “Women are twin-halves of men.”

  • “Actions will be judged according to intentions.”

  • “That which is lawful is clear and that which is unlawful likewise, but there are certain doubtful things between the two from which it is well to abstain.”

  • “The proof of a Muslim’s sincerity is that he pays no attention to that which is not his business.”

  • “That person is nearest to God, who pardons…him who would have injured him.”

  • “…yield obedience to my successor, although he may be an Abyssinian slave.”

  • “Assist any person oppressed, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.”

  • “The creation is like God’s family…the most beloved unto God is the person who does good to God’s family.”

  • “Modesty and chastity are parts of the Faith.”

How are hadith collections viewed?

The overwhelming majority of Muslims consider hadith to be essential supplements to and clarifications of the Qur'an, Islam's holy book.

  • In the matter of what is called fiqh, or 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 Quranic 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.

  • In the matter of what is called tafsir, or exposition of the meaning of the Qur'an, Muslim scholars believe that it is 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.

Some contemporary Muslims argue that the Qur'an alone is sufficient. Examples of such Muslims groups are Bazm-e-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.)

Value of hadith compared to the value of the Qur'an

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 form a partial exception; these (few) hadith are said to be 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 hadith. Even for Muslims who accept the hadith, they are clearly of inferior rank.

Hadith accepted by Sunni Muslims

The Sunni canon of hadith took its final form close to three centuries after the death of Muhammad. Later scholars may have debated the authenticity of particular hadith but the authority of the canon as a whole was not questioned but the body of scholars and intellectuals questioning that authority is growing rapidly. This canon, called the Six major Hadith collections, includes:

  1. Sahih Bukhari, collected by al-Bukhari (d. 870), included 7275 hadiths
  2. Sahih Muslim, collected by Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (d. 875), included 9200
  3. Sunan Abi Da'ud, collected by Abu Da'ud (d. 888)
  4. Sunan al-Tirmidhi, collected by al-Tirmidhi (d. 892)
  5. Sunan al-Sughra, collected by al-Nasa'i (d. 915)
  6. Sunan Ibn Maja, collected by Ibn Maja (d. 886).

al-Bukhari and 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.

Hadith accepted by Shi'a Islam

Shi'a Muslims trust traditions transmitted by Muhammad's descendents through Fatima Zahra, or by early Muslims who remained faithful to Ali ibn Abi Talib. Shi'a distrust traditions transmitted by early Muslims who were hostile to Ali, Muslims such as Aisha, Muhammad's widow, who opposed Ali at the Battle of the Camel. In his book Islam (1962) John A. Williams writes regarding which hadith are accepted by Shias, "In law, the Twelvers do not accept hadiths transmitted by enemies of the Imāms such as ‘A’isha, and make use also of the saying of the Imāms."

There are various sects within Shi'a Islam and within each sect, various traditions of scholarship. Each sect, 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:

  • Usul al-Kafi
  • Al-Istibsaar
  • Al-Tahzeeb
  • Mun La YahDuruHu al-Faqeeh

Hadith accepted by Ibadi Islam

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.

How hadith were collected and evaluated

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 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.

Summary of the science of hadith

The commonest 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) 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 stupid (and thus likely to misunderstand the saying).

Early Sufis, or Muslim mystics and ascetics, are also distrusted by the legal scholars. Imam Malik comments dismissively on "an ascetic who doesn't know what he is narrating".

Sunni scholars regard affiliation to some extreme Shia and Qadariya sects as sometimes reducing a narrator's reliability, due to these sects' alleged propensity for fabricating hadith; Kharijites are seen as less likely to fabricate. However, they generally accept these narrators too as long as they were not engaged in actively spreading their views.

Shi'a scholars, conversely, doubt the impartiality of the Sunni scholars, and privilege narrators known to have followed Ali and his descendants.

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)

Hadith that were not thrown out as clearly spurious (maudu') were usually sorted into three categories:

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

Some of the sahih hadith were further distinguished as mutawatir, or agreed upon. The sayings or events reported in these hadith were attested by so many witnesses, though different isnads, that it was thought inconceivable that these hadith could be forgeries.

Many contemporary Muslims who have not been trained in the sciences of hadith regard the collections of Bukhari and Muslim as particularly reliable, and tend to accept them as sure and certain. Trained Islamic scholars are much more likely to adopt a critical stance towards even the sahih collections, and caution that hadith have to be weighed and evaluated, not accepted as true without further consideration. Hence the MSA collection of hadith, warns:

Today, the situation is different. The collections of ahadeeth have for the most part stabilized, and with the advent of the printing press, the collections are easily mass-produced. There is a blessing in all this of course, but there is a real danger that Muslims will fall under the impression that owning a book or having a database is equivalent to being a scholar of ahadeeth. This is a great fallacy. Therefore, we would like to warn you that this database is merely a tool, and not a substitute for learning, much less scholarship in Islam. *

Shi'a Muslims also believe that training is required to evaluate hadith. In religious matters, lay Shi'a usually defer to the Shi'a clergy with the proper training, the mujtahid and marja.

For more clarification here's a modern scholar view; Sheikh Ahmad Kutty is 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.

Thanks to these efforts, the Qur'an as well as the core tradition on which the Islamic faith and practices are based, have been fully protected.

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.

Western academic views of hadith

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 iconclasts, 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.

Bridges between Muslim and Western scholars

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 millennia-old technique of hadith evaluations which modern scholarship regards as out-dated.

However, some Muslim scholars have undergone Western academic training and attemped to mediate between the traditional Muslim and the secular Western view. Notable among these was Fazlur Rahman (1911-1988) 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.

See also

External links

Qur'an only view

  • http://www.submission.org/HADITH2.HTM

Hadith collections

Supporting hadith study

Critical of hadith study

Hadith study - General

External links

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Hadith".

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