Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn `Uthman ibn Qaymaz ibn `Abd Allah, Shams al-Din Abu `Abd Allah al-Turkmani al-Diyarbakri al-Fariqi al-Dimashqi al-Dhahabi al-Shafi`i (673-748), the imam, Shaykh al-Islam, head of hadith masters, perspicuous critic and expert examiner of the hadith, encyclopedic historian and biographer, and foremost authority in the canonical readings of the Qur'an. Born in Damascus where his family lived from the time of his grandfather `Uthman, he sometimes identified himself as Ibn al-Dhahabi - son of the goldsmith - in reference to his father's profession. He began his study of hadith at age eighteen, travelling from Damascus to Ba`labak, Hims, Hama, Aleppo, Tripoli, Nabulus, al-Ramla, Cairo, Iskandariyya, al-Qudus, Hijaz, and elsewhere to thirty different locations, after which he returned to Damascus where he taught and authored many works and achieved world renown. He lost his sight two years before he died, leaving three children: his eldest daughter Amat al-`Aziz and his two sons `Abd Allah and Abu Hurayra `Abd al-Rahman. The latter taught the hadith masters Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi1 and Ibn Hajar, to whom he transmitted several works authored or narrated by his father.
Among al-Dhahabi's most notable teachers in hadith and fiqh:
1. Ibn al-Zahiri, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn `Abd Allah al-Halabi.
2. Al-Abarquhi, Ahmad ibn Ishaq ibn Muhammad al-Misri (d. 701), from which al-Dhahabi received the Suhrawardi Sufi path.2 He said in his last illness while he was in Mecca: "I will die in this illness because the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- promised me that I would die in Mecca."3
3. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Daqiq al-`Id whom he identified in his youth as Abu al-Fath al-Qushayri, later as as Ibn Wahb.4 When al-Dhahabi first came before Ibn Daqiq al-`Id to study hadith the latter quizzed him: "Who is Abu Muhammad al-Hilali?" Al-Dhahabi correctly answered: "Sufyan ibn `Uyayna."
4. Sharaf al-Din al-Dimyati, `Abd al-Mu'min ibn Khalaf, the foremost Egyptian authority on hadith in his time.
5. "Qadi al-Qudat, the Paragon of Islam, the standard-bearer of the Sunna, my shaykh" Jamal al-Din Abu al-Ma`ali Muhammad ibn `Ali al-Ansari al-Zamalkani al-Dimashqi al-Shafi`i (d. 727).5 He replaced Safi al-Din al-Hindi as chief prosecutor in the Damascus trial of Ibn Taymiyya against whom he subsequently wrote a refutation on divorce, and another refutation on the Visitation to the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him.
Among the praises of hadith scholars about al-Dhahabi:
1. His student Ibn al-Subki said:
Our time was graced with four hadith masters: al-Mizzi, al-Birzali, al-Dhahabi, and my father the Shaykh and Imam [Taqi al-Din al-Subki].7 As for our shaykh Abu `Abd Allah, he is an ocean without peer, a treasure and refuge in time of difficulty, the imam of the living on record, the gold of our time in spirit and letter, the shaykh of narrator-discreditation and narrator-commendation (al-jarh wa al-ta`dil)... and the one who trained us in this science and brought us out into the scholarly throng - may Allah reward him greatly!
3. Another student of his, Salah al-Din al-Safadi, said:
I read before him many of his works and did not find in him the rigidity (jumud) of hadith scholars nor the denseness (kawdana) of transmitters. Rather, he is highly perspicuous and proficient in the sayings of the scholars and the schools of the imams of the Salaf and authorities in doctrine. What most pleased me is the care he shows, in his works, not to mention a hadith except he states whether it suffers from any weakness in its content or chain of transmission or one of its narrators. I did not see others show the same care in what they cite.8
4. The "Commander of the Believers in Hadith" (Amir al-Mu'minin fi al-Hadith), Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani said of him: "He was the most prolific of the scholars of his time. People yearned to obtain his books, travelling to him for that purpose and circulating them through reading, copying, and audition."9 "He is among those who have total mastery in the field of narrator-criticism."10
5. Al-Sakhawi said: "To understand the loftiness of his rank it is enough to know that our shaykh's [Ibn Hajar] supplication, upon drinking Zamzam water, was that Allah make him reach al-Dhahabi's rank in the hadith sciences."11
6. Al-Suyuti said: "Hadith scholars today depend on four figures in the field of narrator-criticism and other related fields: al-Mizzi, al-Dhahabi, al-`Iraqi, and Ibn Hajar."12
7. Al-Shawkani said: "All his books are well-received and sought after.... Historians, from his time onwards, generally depend on him. None has gathered up as much as he in this science."13
8. Ibn al-Subki also criticized al-Dhahabi's anti-Ash`arism and Hanbali leanings in doctrine, calling him one of the greatest propagators of anthropomorphism.14 Elsewhere he states: "Our shaykh al-Dhahabi - may Allah have mercy on him - with all his learning and piety, displays an excessive bias against Ahl al-Sunna; it is not permitted to follow him in this opinion.... Nor is it permissible to rely on our shaykh al-Dhahabi whenever he commends a Hanbali or blames an Ash`ari."15
8. Al-Suyuti also marked his distate for al-Dhahabi's aspersions against early and late Sufi authorities as noted further below. Among the worst examples of al-Dhahabi's bias against Sufis are his aspersions against Abu Yazid al-Bistami and al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi in Siyar A`lam al-Nubala'.16
Among al-Dhahabi's works:17
1. Tarikh al-Islam, the largest biographical encyclopedia in Islam. Ibn Hajar received it from Abu Hurayra ibn al-Dhahabi.18
2. Al-`Ibar bi Akhbar Man `Abar, a condensed biographical history with emphasis on scholars.
3. Duwal al-Islam, a condensed biographical history with emphasis on political figures and events.
4. Siyar A`lam al-Nubala' ("Lives of the Elite of the Nobility"), a unique encyclopedia of biographical history, shorter than Tarikh al-Islam but often containing new material. Al-Dhahabi's method in these works is comprehensive yet concise, showing meticulous scholarship and analysis of both transmission chains and content as well as a preoccupation with doctrine on what he considered the principles of the Salaf. On the topic of travelling to visit the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- he marks his dissent with his contemporary, Ibn Taymiyya, by writing:
Al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn `Ali relates that he saw a man standing in front of the house which contains the grave of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him --, invoking Allah's blessings upon him, whereupon he said to the man: Do not do that, for Allah's Messenger said: "Do not make (the visit to) my grave an anniversary festival (`id), nor turn your houses into graves. Invoke blessings upon me wherever you are, for your invocation reaches me." This narration is missing the Companion-link (mursal) and what al-Hasan adduces in his fatwa is worthless as a proof, because one who stands before the blessed Chamber (hujra) in all humility and submission, invoking blessings upon his Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- - O how blessed that one is! For he has made his visitation excellent, and beautified it with humbleness and love, and he has performed more worship than the one who invoked blessings on the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- from his own land or in his prayer. The reason is that the one who performs visitation has both the reward of visiting him and that of invoking blessings upon him; while those who invoke blessings upon him from all over the world only have the reward of invoking blessings upon him; and upon whomever invokes blessings once, Allah sends ten blessings.
But the person who visits the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- and does not observe decorum in his visitation, or prostrates to the grave, or does something outside the Law, such a person has done both good and bad. He must be taught gently. Allah is forgiving and merciful. By Allah! The Muslim is not moved to distraction and lamentation and kissing the walls and weeping much, except because he is a lover of Allah and of His Prophet. His love is the standard and the distinguishing mark between the people of Paradise and the people of Hellfire. The visit to his grave is among the best of the acts by which one draws near to Allah.
As for travelling to visit the graves of Prophets and saints, even if we should concede that there is no authorization for it due to the general sense of the Prophet's -- Allah bless and greet him -- saying: "Mounts are not saddled except to go to three mosques," nevertheless saddling the mounts to go visit the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- is intrinsic to saddling them to go visit his mosque - which is sanctioned by the Law without contest - for there is no access to his Chamber except after entering his mosque. Therefore let his visitor begin by greeting the mosque, then turn to greet the master of the mosque. May Allah grant us this, and also to you. Amin!"19
5. Tadhkira al-Huffaz ("The Memorial of the Hadith Masters"), without peer in Islamic literature, a chronological history of the biography-layers of the hadith masters beginning with Abu Bakr al-Siddiq and ending with al-Dhahabi's own time. Each entry contains, in addition to biographical data, a hadith transmitted to al-Dhahabi through a chain containing the entry's subject. Ibn Hajar received it from Abu Hurayra ibn al-Dhahabi.20 Al-Suyuti condensed and updated it in Tabaqat al-Huffaz, followed by others.21
6. Al-Mu`in fi Tabaqat al-Muhaddithin, a compendium of hadith scholars.
7. Tabaqat al-Qurra' ("Biography-Layers of the Qur'anic Scholars").
8. Tadhhib Tahdhib al-Kamal, an abridgment of al-Mizzi's 35-volume compendium of historical biographies for hadith narrators cited in the Six Books of hadith. [The two Sahihs and the Four Sunan]
9. Al-Kashif fi Ma`rifa Man Lahu Riwaya fi al-Kutub al-Sitta, an abridgment of the Tadhhib.
10. Al-Mujarrad fi Asma' Rijal al-Kutub al-Sitta, an abridgment of the Kashif.
11. Mizan al-I`tidal fi Naqd al-Rijal, an authoritative manual of weak narrators abridging and improving upon Ibn `Adi's al-Kamil fi al-Du`afa', the first work of its kind. Al-`Iraqi improved upon it in Dhayl al-Mizan, then his student Ibn Hajar in Lisan al-Mizan, then more recently al-`Awni in Dhayl Lisan al-Mizan. Al-Dhahabi's distinctive anti-Sufi and anti-Ash`ari mark can be observed in many entries of the Mizan, notably that of the early Sufi mutakallim al-Harith al-Muhasibi in which he quotes the aspersions of the hadith master Abu Zur`a then exclaims:
And where are the likes of al-Harith al-Muhasibi! How then if Abu Zur`a saw the books of later Sufis such as the Qut al-Qulub of Abu Talib [al-Makki], and where are the likes of the Qut? How then if he saw Bahjat al-Asrar of Abu Jahdam, and Haqa'iq al-Tafsir of al-Sulami, he would jump to the ceiling! How then if he saw the books of Abu Hamid al-Tusi [Imam al-Ghazzali]....? the Ghunya of shaykh `Abd al-Qadir [al-Gilani]... the Fusus al-Hikam and Futuhat al-Makiyya [of Ibn `Arabi]?22
Imam al-Suyuti responded to al-Dhahabi's above insinuations in the following words:
Do not let al-Dhahabi's mumblings deceive you, for he went so far as to mumble against Imam Fakhr al-Din ibn al-Khatib [al-Razi] and against one who is greater than the Imam, namely, Abu Talib al-Makki the author of Qut al-Qulub, and against one who is greater than Abu Talib, namely, Shaykh Abu al-Hasan al-Ash`ari, whose fame has filled the firmaments! And al-Dhahabi's books are filled with that: al-Mizan, al-Tarikh, and Siyar al-Nubala'. Are you going to accept his words against their likes? Never, by Allah! His word is not accepted concerning them. Rather, we respect their right over us and render it to them in full.23
12. Al-Mughni fi al-Du`afa', an abridgment of the Mizan.
13. Al-Ruwat al-Thiqat al-Mutakallim Fihim Bima La Yujibu Raddahum ("The Trustworthy Narrators Whose Reliability Was Investigated For Matters Which Do Not Justify Their Rejection"). In it he states:
I have included in my book [Mizan al-I`tidal] a great number of trustworthy narrators whom Bukhari and Muslim or others relied upon. I cited them only due to the fact that they had been cited in previous manuals of narrator-discreditation. Not that I saw any weakness in them whatsoever, but I wanted only to make a note that they had been cited. Time and again I still encounter the name of a firmly established, trustworthy narrator about whom some question was raised without consequence for his status. If we were to open wide the door of a certain type of internecine criticism, we would be bringing into it droves of Companions, Successors, and Imams of the Religion. For some of the Companions declared others disbelievers because of some interpretation on the latter's part.24 May Allah be well-pleased with all of them and forgive them! They were not immune to sin, nor do their divergences and internecine fighting for causes which normally result in discreditation, provide a precedent in principle for us. Nor did the Khawarij's declaration of apostasy against the Companions affect the reliability of the latter as narrators in the least. On the contrary, the pronouncements of the Khawarij and Shi`a against the Companions became a discreditation for the critics themselves.25 Consider, then, the immense wisdom of your Lord! We ask Allah to grant us safety.
Likewise, much of the criticism of contemporaries against one another must be sealed up and not reported. I shall now expand on this and say what the criterion is between the accepted and the rejected type of discreditation.
As for the Companions, their case is sealed up no matter what took place between them. Our belief and practice is that they are all utterly upright (`udul).26
As for the Successors, one can hardly find a deliberate liar among them although some of them commit mistakes and errors. Whoever has rare mistakes is nevertheless accepted as an authority. Likewise those considered mines of knowledge even if their mistakes are many, although the imams disagree whether the latter category are considered proofs....
As for those whose mistakes and singularities (ghara'ib) are abundant, their narrations do not carry probative weight. This type is hardly found among the early Successors, but more in succeeding generations.
Among the students of the Successors are found deliberate liars and those with abundant mistakes and disarray. Consequently, their narrations were discarded.27
14. Man Tukullima Fihi wa Huwa Muwaththaq aw Salih al-Hadith ("Narrators Whose Reliability Was Questioned Whereas They Are Reliable or Passable").28
15. Dhikr Man Yu`tamad Qawluhu fi al-Jarh wa al-Ta`dil ("Those Whose Evaluations Are Relied Upon in Narrator-Criticism").
16. Mukhtasar Sunan al-Bayhaqi.
17. Mukhtasar Kitab al-Wahm wa al-Iham li Ibn al-Qattan.
18. Al-Tajrid fi Asma' al-Sahaba, a dictionary of the Companions.
19. Mukhtasar al-Mustadrak li al-Hakim, a critical abridgment of al-Hakim's Mustadrak.
20. Mukhtasar Tarikh Naysabur li al-Hakim, an abridgment of al-Hakim's biographical history of the scholars of Naysabur.
21. Al-Muntaqa Min Tarikh Khwarizm li Ibn Arslan, an epitome of the first volume of an eight-volume history of Khwarizm by a contemporary of Ibn `Asakir.
22. Mu`jam al-Shuyukh in a large version entitled al-Kabir and a smaller one entitled al-Saghir or al-Latif. These Mu`jams are a fascinating chronicle of al-Dhahabi's shaykhs through meetings or correspondence. The Kabir contains biographies of about 1,300 of his shaykhs.29 In the entry devoted to Ahmad ibn `Abd al-Mun`im al-Qazwini, al-Dhahabi writes the following lines:
Ahmad ibn al-Mun`im related to us... [with his chain of transmission] from Ibn `Umar that the latter disliked to touch the Prophet's -- Allah bless and greet him -- grave. I say: He disliked it because he considered it disrespect. Ahmad ibn Hanbal was asked about touching the Prophet's -- Allah bless and greet him -- grave and kissing it and he saw nothing wrong with it. His son `Abd Allah related this from him. If it is asked: "Why did the Companions not do this?" We reply: "Because they saw him with their very eyes when he was alive, enjoyed his presence directly, kissed his very hand, nearly fought each other over the remnants of his ablution water, shared his purified hair on the day of the greater Pilgrimage, and even if he spat it would virtually not fall except in someone's hand so that he could pass it over his face. Since we have not had the tremendous fortune of sharing in this, we throw ourselves on his grave as a mark of commitment, reverence, and acceptance, even to kiss it. Do you not see what Thabit al-Bunani did when he kissed the hand of Anas ibn Malik and placed it on his face saying: "This is the hand that touched the hand of Allah's Messenger"? Muslims are not moved to these matters except by their excessive love for the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him --, as they are ordered to love Allah and the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- more than their own lives, their children, all human beings, their property, and Paradise and its maidens. There are even some believers that love Abu Bakr and `Umar more than themselves...
Do you not you see that the Companions, in the excess of their love for the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him --, asked him: "Should we not prostrate to you?" and he replied no, and if he had allowed them, they would have prostrated to him as a mark of utter veneration and respect, not as a mark of worship, just as the brothers of the Prophet Yusuf prostrated to him. Similarly the prostration of the Muslim to the grave of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- is for the intention of magnification and reverence. One is not to be accused of disbelief because of it whatsoever (la yukaffaru aslan), but he is being disobedient [to the Prophet's injunction to the Companions]. Let him, therefore, be informed that this is forbidden. It is likewise in the case of one who prays towards the grave."30
Do you not you see that the Companions, in the excess of their love for the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him --, asked him: "Should we not prostrate to you?" and he replied no, and if he had allowed them, they would have prostrated to him as a mark of utter veneration and respect, not as a mark of worship, just as the brothers of the Prophet Yusuf prostrated to him. Similarly the prostration of the Muslim to the grave of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- is for the intention of magnification and reverence. One is not to be accused of disbelief because of it whatsoever (la yukaffaru aslan), but he is being disobedient [to the Prophet's injunction to the Companions]. Let him, therefore, be informed that this is forbidden. It is likewise in the case of one who prays towards the grave."30
23. Al-Mu`jam al-Mukhtass bi Muhaddithi al-`Asr, listing only his shaykhs in hadith and containing a unique autobiographical entry:
Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn `Uthman... the teacher of Qur'an and hadith scholar and author of this compendium. Born in the year 73. Abu Zakariyya ibn al-Sayrafi gave him a certification [in narration] as well as Ibn Abi al-Khayr, al-Qutb ibn `Asrun, al-Qasim al-Irbili, and a number of others. In Damascus he heard hadith from `Umar ibn al-Qawwas, in Ba`labak from al-Taj ibn `Alwan, in Cairo from al-Dimyati, in al-Qarafa from al-Abarquhi, in al-Thaghr from al-Gharrafi, in Mecca from al-Tawzari, in Aleppo from Sunqur al-Zayni, and in Nabulus from al-`Imad ibn Badran. He compiled works which are said to be beneficial. The congregation of scholars grace him with compliments but he knows himself better, being well aware of his shortcomings in knowledge and deeds. Reliance is upon Allah. There is no change nor power except with Him. If the fact that I have faith is granted, then I cry victory!31
Ibn Hajar received all three Mu`jams from Abu Hurayra ibn al-Dhahabi.32
24. Al-Amsar Dhawat al-Athar ("Cities Rich in Historical Relics"), which begins with the description of Madina al-Munawwara.
25. Mukhtasar al-Muhalla li Ibn Hazm, an abridgment of Ibn Hazm's fiqh manual.
26. Naba' al-Dajjal, a monograph on the hadiths and reports that mention the Anti-Christ.
27. Al-Kaba'ir ("The Enormities"), his most widely circulating book. He defines an enormity as any sin entailing either a threat of punishment in the hereafter explicitly mentioned in the Qur'an or hadith, a prescribed legal penalty (hadd), or a curse by Allah or His Messenger -- Allah bless and greet him --.
28. Bayan Zaghl al-`Ilm wa al-Talab in which al-Dhahabi states: "Ibn Taymiyya was considered by his enemies to be a wicked Anti-Christ and disbeliever, while great numbers of the wise and the elite considered him an eminent, brilliant, and scholarly innovator (mubtadi` fadil muhaqqiq bari`)."33
29. An epistle entitled al-Nasiha al-Dhahabiyya written when al-Dhahabi was around fifty-five years of age and addressed to Ibn Taymiyya towards the end of his life. In this brief but scathing epistle the author distances himself from his contemporary and admonishes him without naming him, calling him "an eloquent polemicist who neither rests nor sleeps."34 A "Salafi" apologist recently cast doubt on the authenticity of al-Dhahabi's authorship of this epistle, also claiming that, even if al-Dhahabi wrote it, then it is directed to someone other than Ibn Taymiyya.35 However, both Salah al-Din al-Munajjid and Dr. Bashshar `Awwad Ma`ruf declared that there was no doubt al-Dhahabi wrote it towards the end of his life and addressed Ibn Taymiyya.36 Ibn Hajar voiced no doubt as to the authenticity of this epistle as attributed to al-Dhahabi,37 nor al-Sakhawi who calls it "a glorious statement of doctrine."38 In particular the Nasiha contains the following prophetic description of Taymiyya-followers in our time:
"Oh the disappointment of him who follows you! For he is exposed to corruption in basic beliefs and to dissolution. Particularly if he is short of learning and religion, a self-indulgent idler who does well for you by fighting on your behalf with his hand and tongue, while he is actually your enemy in his being and heart. What are your followers but hidebound do-nothings of little intelligence, common liars with dull minds, silent outlanders strong in guile, or dryly righteous without understanding? If you do not believe it, just look at them and honestly assess them."39
30. Al-Dinar Min Hadith al-Mashayikh al-Kibar, a brief compendium of narrations al-Dhahabi heard from aged shaykhs, in pursuit of shorter transmission chains.
31. Fadl Aya al-Kursi,
32. Al-Musalsal bi al-Awwaliyya, all three of which Ibn Hajar heard from Abu Hurayra ibn al-Dhahabi.40
33. Al-`Uluw li al-`Ali al-Ghaffar ("The Exaltation of the All-High and Most-Forgiving"), a book written under Ibn Taymiyya's influence - as stated by al-Kawthari in his Maqalat - when al-Dhahabi was twenty-five and which he later disavowed as related by its copyist the hadith master Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi (d. 842):
Its author stated - as Allah is His witness - in his own hand-writing as I read it in the margin of the original manuscript written in the year 698:
"This book contains narrations against the unreliability of which I am cautioning the reader, and the statements of a number of people who spoke in outlandish terms. Neither do I subscribe to their terms, nor do I imitate them. May Allah forgive them! Nor will I ever consider myself bound by such terms. This is my belief, and I know that Allah – "There is nothing whatsoever like unto Him" (42:11)!"41
Al-Dhahabi nevertheless commits several blunders in al-`Uluw, despite its small size, because of his evident search for evidence that supports the conception of Allah's literal height so dear to his teacher. The most glaring of those mistakes are the inaccurate referencing of several narrations to al-Bukhari or Muslim or both when in fact they are not narrated by them. For example:
1) He cites the hadith of `Imran ibn Husayn from the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- with the wording: "Allah was on the Throne (kana Allah `ala al-`arsh), and He was before everything, and He wrote on the Tablet everything that shall ever be." Then he says: "This is a sound hadith, al-Bukhari narrates it in several places."42 However, none of the versions al-Bukhari narrates in several places of his Sahih contains the words "Allah was on the Throne," by which al-Dhahabi purports to support the anthropomorphist perspective of his book. Nor is this wording found in any authentic hadith in the first place, nor is it found in any book of hadith, whether authentic or forged.43
2) He cites a hadith whereby Ibn `Abbas explains the verses "the heaven that He built, He raised the height thereof and ordered it" (79:28) to mean: "He created the earth two days before the heaven, then He turned to the heaven and ordered them in two other days, then He descended to the earth (thumma nazala ila al-ard) and spread it, its spreading meaning that He brought forth from it water and pasture." Then al-Dhahabi said: "al-Bukhari narrated it from Yusuf ibn `Adi [twice], once with part of its chain."44 However, nowhere in his Sahih does al-Bukhari mention the phrase "then He descended to the earth" upon which al-Dhahabi depends so as to include it as evidence for literal height. That phrase is only found in two very weak narrations outside al-Bukhari, one by al-Tabarani, the other by Abu al-Shaykh.45 The sound narration found in al-Bukhari states that Ibn `Abbas said: "He created the earth in two days, then He created the heaven, then He turned to the heaven and ordered them in two other days, then He spread the earth, its spreading meaning that He brought forth from it water and pasture."
3) He refers a hadith to al-Bukhari and Muslim thus: "It is narrated in the two Sahihs that the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- supplicated Allah on behalf of a group of people saying: `May the pious eat from your food, may those who fast break their fast in your house, may the angels invoke blessings upon you, and may Allah mention you among those who are with Him.'"46 However, nowhere in the two Sahihs is the phrase "may Allah mention you among those who are with Him" found. It is a measure of al-Albani's overall unreliability that he caught only one out of these three mistakes, confirming al-Dhahabi on (1) and (2) but correcting him on (3).47
Al-Dhahabi defined knowledge in Islam (al-`ilm) as "Not the profusion of narration, but a light which Allah casts into the heart. Its condition is followership (ittiba`) and the flight away from egotism (hawa) and innovation."48
At the mention of al-Harawi al-Ansari's Sufi manual Manazil al-Sa'irin in the Siyar al-Dhahabi exclaims:
How beautiful was the tasawwuf of the Companions and Successors! They did not probe those phantasms and whisperings of the mind but worshipped Allah, humbling themselves and relying upon Him, in great awe and fear of Him, fiercely combating His enemies, hastening to obey Him, staying away from idle speech. Allah guides whomever He wills to the straight path.49
Main sources
Ibn al-Subki, Tabaqat al-Shafi`iyya al-Kubra 9:100-106 #1306; Sa`d, Safahat fi Tarjima al-Hafiz al-Dhahabi.
NOTES
1As stated by al-Sakhawi in al-Daw' al-Lami` (8:103).
2 Siyar A`lam al-Nubala' [SAN] (17:118-119 #6084, 16:300-302 #5655).
3Al-Dhahabi, al-Mu`jam al-Kabir (1:37).
4Cf. al-`Uluw (Abu al-Fath) and al-Muqiza (Ibn Wahb).
5Al-Dhahabi, al-Mu`jam al-Kabir (2:244).
6Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya (14:131-132); Ibn Hajar, al-Durar al-Kamina (4:193); Ibn al-Subki, Tabaqat al-Shafi`iyya al-Kubra (9:191).
7Of al-Mizzi and al-Dhahabi Ibn al-Subki also said: "Neither of them knew anything about the rational sciences (al-`aqliyyat)" i.e. kalam and debate. Cited by al-Sakhawi in al-I`lan (p. 75).
8Al-Safadi, al-Wafi bi al-Wafayat (2:163).
9Ibn Hajar, al-Durar al-Kamina (3:426-427).
10Ibn Hajar, Sharh al-Nukhba (p. 136).
11Al-Sakhawi, al-I`lan (p. 76).
12Al-Suyuti, Tabaqat al-Huffaz (p. 518).
13Al-Shawkani, al-Badr al-Tali` (p. 627).
14In Tabaqat al-Shafi`iyya al-Kubra (3:352-354, 8:88-89, 9:103). For example, an odd report brought up by Ibn Abi Ya`la, then exhibited by al-Dhahabi - despite its unreliability - depicts a fawning Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Ash`ari enumerating before the Hanbali scholar Abu Muhammad al-Barbahari his refutations of the Mu`tazila and defense of Ahl al-Sunna in order to win his approval, to which the Hanbali coolly responds: "We only know what Ahmad ibn Hanbal said." [In Tabaqat al-Hanabila (2:18) with a chain of unknown narrators.] Al-Dhahabi cites this report at the opening of his biographical notice on al-Barbahari in the Siyar directly following the extremely brief notice on Imam al-Ash`ari without questioning it in the least. [In the Siyar (11:543) without chain.] Another blatant lapse in this regard is al-Dhahabi's mention of a report whereby Zahir ibn Ahmad, peeking into his teacher's house through a hole, observed al-Ash`ari urinating then went in, after which he saw him proceed to pray without ablution. This report is narrated through a chain missing all but three narrators, one of them the peeping Tom and the other two arch-enemies of the Ash`ari school. [Narrated from Zahir ibn Ahmad in the Siyar (12:504) with a chain containing Yahya ibn `Ammar al-Shaybani and his student `Abd Allah al-Harawi al-Ansari. Of the first al-Dhahabi said in the Siyar (13:310 #3932): "His zeal against innovators and the Jahmiyya pushed him to trespass the way of the Salaf"; while the second was repeatedly jailed then expelled from Herat for inciting violence against students of the Ash`ari school.] Yet al-Dhahabi goes on to say: "Perhaps he forgot to make ablution," implicitly declaring this story authentic when it is evidently unreliable. Al-Shawkani in al-Badr al-Tali` (p. 627-628) and Shaykh `Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda in his edition of Ibn al-Subki's Qa`ida fi al-Jarh wa al-Ta`dil defend al-Dhahabi from these charges but neither addresses the issue of anthropomorphism. Ibn al-Subki also criticizes al-Dhahabi's neglect of Hanafi scholars in his historical reference works such as the Siyar and Tarikh al-Islam. Al-Shawkani's reply that al-Dhahabi concentrated on hadith scholars somewhat explains this neglect, but does not excuse the omission of the likes of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi. Abu Ghudda also disputes Ibn al-Subki's claim that al-Dhahabi shows bias against Sufis by quoting his praise of Sufis in countless places of his works. It is evident that al-Dhahabi marks his disapproval of anything that deviates inexcusably, in his view, from the Sunna, even in the lives and words of the Sufis of the Salaf, not to mention later figures. This has led his student Ibn al-Subki, al-Suyuti, al-Lucknawi and others, to lay the charge of disrespect at his door despite their admiration, and Allah knows best.
15Ibn al-Subki, Qa`ida (p. 32-37, 59-60), Tabaqat al-Shafi`iyya al-Kubra [TSK] (2:13-16). Cf. Al-Sakhawi, al-I`lan (p. 75).
16Al-Dhahabi, SAN (11:14-15 #2434).
17For a complete list see the biographical entries on al-Dhahabi in Ibn al-Subki's Tabaqat, Ibn Hajar's Durar, al-Suyuti's Tabaqat, Ma`ruf's al-Dhahabi, and Sa`d's Safahat.
18Ibn Hajar, al-Mu`jam (p. 400 #1773).
19Al-Dhahabi, Siyar (Arna'ut ed. 4:484-485). Shaykh Shu`ayb Arna'ut comments: "The author meant by this excursus to refute his shaykh, Ibn Taymiyya."
20Ibn Hajar, al-Mu`jam (p. 400 #1774).
21 Tadhkira al-Huffaz. 4 vols. in 2. Ed. 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Yahya al-Mu'allimi. A fifth volume, titled Dhayl Tadhkira al-Huffaz, consists in al-Husayni's Dhayl Tadhkira al-Huffaz, Muhammad ibn Fahd al-Makki's Lahz al-Alhaz bi Dhayl Tadhkira al-Huffaz, and al-Suyuti's Dhayl Tabaqat al-Huffaz. Ed. Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari. Beirut: Dar Ihya' al-Turath al-'Arabi and Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, n.d. Reprint of the 1968 Hyderabad edition.
22Al-Dhahabi, Mizan (1:430 #1606).
23Al-Suyuti, Qam` al-Mu`arid bi Nusra Ibn al-Farid ("The Taming of the Objector With the Vindication of Ibn al-Farid") in his Maqamat (2:917-918) and as quoted by Imam al-Lucknawi in al-Raf` wa al-Takmil fi al-Jarh wa al-Ta`dil (p. 319-320)
24One is hard put to find an example of a Companion declaring another Companion a disbeliever.
25Of the same type of self-damning criticism in our time are the pronouncements of `Abd Allah al-Harari and his Habashi or Ahbash sect against the Companions in his book al-Dalil al-Shar`i `ala Ithbat `Isyan Man Qatalahum `Ali Min Sahabi aw Tabi`i ("The Legal Proof For Affirming the Sin of Whoever `Ali Fought Against Among the Companions and Successors"), not to mention their attacks against contemporary Sunni figures such as Dr. Muhammad Sa`id Ramadan al-Buti, Dr. Muhammad ibn `Alawi al-Maliki, Shaykh Muhammad Rajab Dib, and our shaykh Mawlana al-Shaykh Nazim al-Qubrusi.
26This is the position of Ahl al-Sunna including the Imams of the Four Schools of Law and the two doctrinal schools, those of hadith, and those of tasawwuf. Whoever differs from the position stated by al-Dhahabi is considered to deviate from Sunni doctrine in this respect as indicated by `Umar ibn `Abd al-`Aziz (see p. 671).
27Quoted in Ibn al-Subki, Tabaqat al-Shafi`iyya al-Kubra (9:111-112).
28Sa`d in Safahat (p. 22) pointed out that Dr. Awwad's concatenation in al-Dhahabi (p. 192-193 #90) of this and the previous entry into a single work entitled Dhikr Man Tukullima Fihi wa Huwa Muwaththaq ("Narrators Whose Reliability Was Questioned Whereas They are Reliable") was an error on his part.
29A number of entries devoted to al-Dhahabi's Sufi shaykhs of hadith were translated in the volume on tasawwuf of Shaykh Hisham Kabbani's "Encyclopedia of Islamic Doctrine."
30Al-Dhahabi, Mujam al-Shuyukh (1:73 #58).
31Al-Mu`jam al-Mukhtass fo 30a, as cited by Sa`d in Safahat (p. 18-19).
32Ibn Hajar, al-Mu`jam (p. 194-195 #795-797).
33Cited in al-Sakhawi, al-I`lan (p. 78).
34Al-Dhahabi, al-Nasiha al-Dhahabiyya, in the margin of his Bayan Zaghl al-`Ilm wa al-Talab, ed. al-Kawthari (Damascus: Qudsi, 1928-1929); also in Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya, Siratuhu wa Akhbaruhu `Inda al-Mu'arrikhin, ed. Salah al-Din al-Munajjid (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-`Arabi, 1976) p. 11-14.
35Muhammad al-Shaybani, al-Tawdih al-Jali fi al-Radd `ala al-Nasiha al-Dhahabiyya al-Manhula `ala al-Imam al-Dhahabi (al-Kuwait: Markaz al-Makhtutat wa al-Turath, 1993). This type of revisionist scholarship is reminiscent of the story-teller who was caught by Imam Ahmad saying: "Ahmad ibn Hanbal narrated to us..." whereupon the unfazed fibber replied: "I meant another Ahmad ibn Hanbal, not you!"
36Cf. Bashshar `Awwad Ma`ruf, al-Dhahabi (p. 146). Two extant manuscripts of the Nasiha are kept, one in Cairo at the Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya (#B18823) copied by Ibn Qadi Shuhba and one in Damascus at the Zahiriyya library (#1347).
37In al-Durar al-Kamina (1:166).
38In al-I`lan wa al-Tawbikh (p. 77=54).
39See http://ds.dial.pipex.com/masud/ISLAM/misc/dhahabi.htm for a full translation of the Nasiha.
40Ibn Hajar, al-Mu`jam (p. 111 #389; p. 162 #609).
41Cited and photo-reproduced at the beginning of Shaykh Hasan `Ali al-Saqqaf's edition of al-Dhahabi's `Uluw (p. 3-4).
42Al-Dhahabi, al-`Uluw (239-240 #112) and Mukhtasar al-`Uluw (p. 98 #40).
43On the hadith of `Imran ibn Husayn see our post "Allah Is Now As He Ever Was."
44Al-Dhahabi, al-`Uluw (p. 216 #77) and Mukhtasar al-`Uluw (p. 94 #26).
45Al-Tabarani in al-Kabir (10:245-246) with a chain containing Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hajjaj al-Misri, who Ibn `Adi said was accused of lying, as stated by al-Dhahabi himself in Mizan al-I`tidal (1:133 #538); Abu al-Shaykh, al-`Azama (3:1039) with a chain containing al-`Ala' ibn Hilal ibn `Umar al-Bahili who is very weak as stated in Arna'ut and Ma`ruf's al-Tahrir (3:132 #5259) and accused by some of forgery as stated by al-Dhahabi himself in al-Mizan (3:106 #5748) and in al-Tahrir.
46Al-Dhahabi, al-`Uluw (p. 335 #225) and Mukhtasar al-`Uluw (p. 123 #84).
47 See Mukhtasar al-`Uluw (p. 98 #40, p. 94 #26, and p. 123 #84).
48 Siyar A`lam al-Nubala' (10:642).
49 Siyar A`lam al-Nubala' (14:42).
Blessings and peace on the Prophet, his Family, and all his Companions.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Imam Muslim
The full name of Imam Muslim is Abul Husain Muslim ibn Al-Hajjaj Al-Qushairi An-Naisaburi. He belonged to the Qushair tribe of the Arabs, an offshoot of the great clan of Rabi`ah. He was born in Nishapur in AH 202/817 CE or AH 206/821 CE. His parents were religiously minded persons and as such he was brought up in a pious atmosphere. This left such an indelible impression on his mind that he spent the whole of his life as a God-fearing person and always adhered to the path of righteousness. He was in fact a righteous man of high caliber. His excellent moral character can be well judged from the simple fact that he never indulged in backbiting, a very common human failing.
Imam Muslim traveled widely to collect traditions in Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, where he attended the lectures of some of the prominent traditionists of his time such as Ishaq ibn Rahwaih, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, `Ubaidullah Al-Qawariri, Qutaibah ibn Sa`id, `Abdullah ibn Maslamah, Harmalah ibn Yahya, and others.
Having finished his studies, he settled down at Nishapur. There he came into contact with Imam Al-Bukhari and was so much impressed by his vast knowledge of Hadith and his deep insight into it that he kept himself attached to him up to the end of Al-Bukhari’s life. He was an ardent admirer of another great teacher of Hadith, Muhammad ibn Yahya Adh-Dhuhali and attended his lectures regularly. But when the difference of opinion between Muhammad ibn Yahya and Imam Al-Bukhari, on the issue of the creation of the Qur’an, sharpened into hostility, Imam Muslim sided with Imam Al-Bukhari and abandoned Muhammad ibn Yahya altogether. He was thus a true disciple of Imam Al-Bukhari.
Imam Muslim wrote many books and treatises on Hadith, but the most important of his works is the collection entitled Al-Jami` As-Sahih. Some Hadith commentators are of the opinion that in certain respects it is the best and most authentic work on the subject. Imam Muslim took great pains in collecting 300,000 hadiths, and then after a thorough examination of them retained only 4,000, the genuineness of which is fully established.(1)
He prefixed to his compilation a very illuminating introduction, in which he specified some of the principles that he followed in the choice of his material.
Imam Muslim has to his credit many other valuable contributions to different branches of Hadith literature, and most of them retain their eminence even to the present day. Amongst these Kitab Al-Musnad Al-Kabir `ala Ar-Rijal, Al-Jami` Al-Kabir, Kitab Al-Asma’ wal-Kuna, and Kitab Al-`Ilal are very important.
His Methods of Classification and Annotation
After the Qur’an, Bukhari’s Sahih is the most reliable book of Islamic Shari`ah. Muslim’s Sahih comes next to it. However, in certain respects the latter is considered superior to the former. Imam Muslim strictly observed many principles of the science of Hadith that were slightly ignored by his great teacher Imam Al-Bukhari (may Allah have mercy on both of them). Imam Muslim considered only such hadiths to be genuine and authentic as had been transmitted to him by an unbroken chain of reliable authorities and were in perfect harmony with what had been related by other narrators whose trustworthiness was unanimously accepted and who were free from all defects.
Moreover, Imam Al-Bukhari, while describing the chain of narrators, sometimes mentioned their kunyahs (epithets) and sometimes gave their names. This was particularly true in case of the narrators of Syria. This created confusion, which Imam Muslim avoided.
Imam Muslim took particular care in recording the exact words of the narrators and pointed out even the minutest difference in the wording of their reports.
Imam Muslim also constantly kept in view the difference between the two well-known modes of narration, haddathana (“he narrated to us”) and akhbarana (“he informed us”). He is of the opinion that the first mode is used only when the teacher is narrating the hadith and the student is listening to it, while the second mode of expression implies that the student is reading the hadith before the teacher. This reflects his utmost care in the transmission of a hadith.
Imam Muslim took great pains in connecting the chain of narrators. He recorded only hadiths that at least two reliable tabi`in (successors) had heard from two Companions, and this principle was observed throughout the subsequent chain of narrators.
His Students
Imam Muslim had a very wide circle of students who learned Hadith from him. Some of them occupy a very prominent position in Islamic history, for example, Abu Hatim Ar-Razi, Musa ibn Harun, Ahmad ibn Salamah, Abu `Isa At-Tirmidhi, Abu Bakr ibn Khuthaimah, Abu ‘Awanah, and Al-Hafiz Adh-Dhahabi.
His Death
Imam Muslim lived for 55 years in this world. He spent most of this short lifespan learning, compiling, teaching, and transmitting Hadith. He always remained absorbed in this single pursuit, and nothing could distract his attention from this pious task. He died in AH 261/875 CE and was buried in the suburbs of Nishapur.
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(1) It is essential to remove one of the serious misgivings under which so many Orientalists and Westernized Muslim scholars are laboring. When they are told that Imam Muslim selected 4,000 hadiths out of a total collection of 300,000, they think that since quite a large number of hadiths were unreliable, they were therefore rejected. They then jump to the conclusion that the whole stock of Hadith is spurious and should be rejected outright. This betrays utter ignorance of the critics, even about the elementary knowledge of hadith. Matn (text) is not the basis on which the number of hadiths is calculated. Hadiths are counted on the chain of transmission. Thus when we say that Imam Muslim collected 300,000 hadiths and included only 4,000 in his compilation, it does not imply that he rejected the rest of the whole lot of the Prophet’s sayings as being unreliable. What this means is that the words and deeds of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) were transmitted to Imam Muslim through so many chains of transmission, out of which he selected 4,000 chains as most authentic and narrated the text on their authority. A text (matn) that is transmitted through one hundred isnads is in Hadith literature treated as one hundred traditions. For example, the text of the first hadith in Al-Bukhari (The Actions Are Based on Intention) is counted as a selection of one out of 700 hadiths since it has been transmitted through such a large number of isnads.
Imam Muslim traveled widely to collect traditions in Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, where he attended the lectures of some of the prominent traditionists of his time such as Ishaq ibn Rahwaih, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, `Ubaidullah Al-Qawariri, Qutaibah ibn Sa`id, `Abdullah ibn Maslamah, Harmalah ibn Yahya, and others.
Having finished his studies, he settled down at Nishapur. There he came into contact with Imam Al-Bukhari and was so much impressed by his vast knowledge of Hadith and his deep insight into it that he kept himself attached to him up to the end of Al-Bukhari’s life. He was an ardent admirer of another great teacher of Hadith, Muhammad ibn Yahya Adh-Dhuhali and attended his lectures regularly. But when the difference of opinion between Muhammad ibn Yahya and Imam Al-Bukhari, on the issue of the creation of the Qur’an, sharpened into hostility, Imam Muslim sided with Imam Al-Bukhari and abandoned Muhammad ibn Yahya altogether. He was thus a true disciple of Imam Al-Bukhari.
Imam Muslim wrote many books and treatises on Hadith, but the most important of his works is the collection entitled Al-Jami` As-Sahih. Some Hadith commentators are of the opinion that in certain respects it is the best and most authentic work on the subject. Imam Muslim took great pains in collecting 300,000 hadiths, and then after a thorough examination of them retained only 4,000, the genuineness of which is fully established.(1)
He prefixed to his compilation a very illuminating introduction, in which he specified some of the principles that he followed in the choice of his material.
Imam Muslim has to his credit many other valuable contributions to different branches of Hadith literature, and most of them retain their eminence even to the present day. Amongst these Kitab Al-Musnad Al-Kabir `ala Ar-Rijal, Al-Jami` Al-Kabir, Kitab Al-Asma’ wal-Kuna, and Kitab Al-`Ilal are very important.
His Methods of Classification and Annotation
After the Qur’an, Bukhari’s Sahih is the most reliable book of Islamic Shari`ah. Muslim’s Sahih comes next to it. However, in certain respects the latter is considered superior to the former. Imam Muslim strictly observed many principles of the science of Hadith that were slightly ignored by his great teacher Imam Al-Bukhari (may Allah have mercy on both of them). Imam Muslim considered only such hadiths to be genuine and authentic as had been transmitted to him by an unbroken chain of reliable authorities and were in perfect harmony with what had been related by other narrators whose trustworthiness was unanimously accepted and who were free from all defects.
Moreover, Imam Al-Bukhari, while describing the chain of narrators, sometimes mentioned their kunyahs (epithets) and sometimes gave their names. This was particularly true in case of the narrators of Syria. This created confusion, which Imam Muslim avoided.
Imam Muslim took particular care in recording the exact words of the narrators and pointed out even the minutest difference in the wording of their reports.
Imam Muslim also constantly kept in view the difference between the two well-known modes of narration, haddathana (“he narrated to us”) and akhbarana (“he informed us”). He is of the opinion that the first mode is used only when the teacher is narrating the hadith and the student is listening to it, while the second mode of expression implies that the student is reading the hadith before the teacher. This reflects his utmost care in the transmission of a hadith.
Imam Muslim took great pains in connecting the chain of narrators. He recorded only hadiths that at least two reliable tabi`in (successors) had heard from two Companions, and this principle was observed throughout the subsequent chain of narrators.
His Students
Imam Muslim had a very wide circle of students who learned Hadith from him. Some of them occupy a very prominent position in Islamic history, for example, Abu Hatim Ar-Razi, Musa ibn Harun, Ahmad ibn Salamah, Abu `Isa At-Tirmidhi, Abu Bakr ibn Khuthaimah, Abu ‘Awanah, and Al-Hafiz Adh-Dhahabi.
His Death
Imam Muslim lived for 55 years in this world. He spent most of this short lifespan learning, compiling, teaching, and transmitting Hadith. He always remained absorbed in this single pursuit, and nothing could distract his attention from this pious task. He died in AH 261/875 CE and was buried in the suburbs of Nishapur.
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(1) It is essential to remove one of the serious misgivings under which so many Orientalists and Westernized Muslim scholars are laboring. When they are told that Imam Muslim selected 4,000 hadiths out of a total collection of 300,000, they think that since quite a large number of hadiths were unreliable, they were therefore rejected. They then jump to the conclusion that the whole stock of Hadith is spurious and should be rejected outright. This betrays utter ignorance of the critics, even about the elementary knowledge of hadith. Matn (text) is not the basis on which the number of hadiths is calculated. Hadiths are counted on the chain of transmission. Thus when we say that Imam Muslim collected 300,000 hadiths and included only 4,000 in his compilation, it does not imply that he rejected the rest of the whole lot of the Prophet’s sayings as being unreliable. What this means is that the words and deeds of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) were transmitted to Imam Muslim through so many chains of transmission, out of which he selected 4,000 chains as most authentic and narrated the text on their authority. A text (matn) that is transmitted through one hundred isnads is in Hadith literature treated as one hundred traditions. For example, the text of the first hadith in Al-Bukhari (The Actions Are Based on Intention) is counted as a selection of one out of 700 hadiths since it has been transmitted through such a large number of isnads.
Imam al-Tirmidhi
Imam Tirmidhi (209 - 279 H)
Imam Tirmidhi was born in the year 209 A.H. during the reign of the Abbasid Khalifa Ma'mun al-Rashid. The Abbasid Caliphate, despite its brilliant contributions to Islam, brought along with it many thorny problems. Greek Philosophy had a free flow into the Islamic world. This was fully sanctioned by the government until eventually it declared the Mu'tazila school of thought as the state religion. Anyone who opposed the Mu'tazila school of thought would be opposing the state. With the influence of Greek philosophy infiltrating within the people, many Muslims began attempting to reconcile between reason and revelation. As a result they deviated themselves and misled many innocent weak Muslims away from Allah and His Prophet (s). Many scholars of Islam had come to the fore in order to defend the Shari`ah. Forgeries and interpolations in Hadith by rulers who wished to fulfil their personal motives was common. In the first century `Umar bin Abdul `Aziz (r) initiated a movement for the compilation of the holy hadith of the the Prophet (s) as there was a fear of it being lost. Eventually this gigantic task was undertaken by six towering scholars of Islam. One of them was Imam Abu `Isa Muhammed ibn `Isa Tirmidhi
Having grown up in an environment of learning, together with possessing many great qualities naturally drove Imam Tirmidhi to dedicate his life totally towards the field of Hadith. He obtained his basic knowledge at home and later travelled to far off lands in search of this great science. He studied Hadith under great personalities such as Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim and Imam Abu Dawud. In some narrations Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim are his students as well.
Once Imam Bukhari mentioned to him "I have benefited more from you than you have benefitted from me." Musa ibn `Alaq once said: "When Imam Bukhari passed away, he left no one in Khurasan who compared with Abu `Isa Tirmidhi in knowledge, memory, piety and abstinence." According to `Abdullah ibn Muhammed Al-Ansari, Imam Tirmidhi's Al-Jami` is more beneficial than the works of Bukhari and Muslim since their compilations can only be understood by a very deep sighted scholar whereas Al-Jami` can be understood by both the scholar and the layman.
Imam Tirmidhi said that he compiled this book and presented it to the learned of Hijaz, Iraq and Khurasan and they were pleased with it. Who ever has this book in his home, it is as though he has the Prophet (s) speaking to him there.
His remarkable memory:
Imam Tirmidhi had an exceptionally remarkable memory. If he heard something once he never forgot it. Once on his way to Makkah, Imam Tirmidhi met a scholar of hadith (muhaddith) from whom he had previously copied two chapters of hadith. Thinking that he had the notes with him he asked the scholar if he would allow him to read out these two chapters so that he could correct any errors. After realizing that he did not have those notes with him he took a blank piece of paper and read out the entire two parts from memory. When the muhaddith realized what he was doing he rebuked Imam Tirmidhi saying: "Have you no shame, why are you wasting my time." Imam Tirmidhi assured him that he had committed all the ahadith to memory. The scholar was not convinced, even though Imam Tirmidhi had recited all the hadith from memory. Imam Tirmidhi requested him to recite to him some other hadith. The scholar recited forty ahadith which Imam Tirmidhi thenrepeated without making a single error, thus showing his remarkable power of committing hadith to memory.
Another incident has been recorded by Hakim ul-Ummat in his Al-Misk-us-Zaki, depicting the profound memory of Imam Tirmidhi. He writes:
Imam Tirmidhi had lost his sight towards the latter portion of his life. Once whilst on a journey, at a certain point he bowed his head. When asked as to why he did this, he replied: "Is there not a tree here whose branches hang over in such a manner that it harms those who are passing by." They answered in the negative. He was quite shocked when he heard this as he distinctly remembered there being a tree and was worried as to whether his memory was failing him or not. He stopped the caravan immediately and asked his companions to enquire from the locals whether a tree had existed there or not. "If it is established that no tree existed then I will stop narrating the Hadith of the Prophet (s) due to my weak memory." On inquiry it was shown to them that a tree had previously existed over there but due to it being a hindrance to travelers it was removed.
Imam Tirmidhi had a large number of students from all over the world. The most famous amongst them were Haysam ibn Kulaib, Abul Abbaas and Muhammed ibn Ahmed Shah Abdul `Aziz describes Imam Tirmidhi in the following words: "His memory was unique and his piety and fear of Allah ta'la was of a very high caliber. He would cry so much out of the fear of Allah, that towards the end of his life he lost his sight."
According to Ibn Taymiyya and Shah Waliullah, Imam Timidhi was an independent Jurist (Mujtahid). Moulana Anwar Shah Kashmiri is of the opinion that he was a Shafi`i.
In the year 279 A.H. in a village called Bawag at the age of 70 , Imam Tirmidhi left this temporary abode for the everlasting life of the hereafter. May Allah swt fill his grave with light. The enormity of his sacrifices and the extent to which he served the religion can never be fully comprehended.
Many books of hadith were compiled before Imam Tirmidhi decided to compile his Al-Jami`. Dawud Tayalisi and Ahmed ibn Hanbal had compiled books consisting of both authentic and weak hadith. Later Imam Bukhari compiled his Sahih and omitted all weak narrations from it. His main objective was to derive masa'il / laws from the relevant hadith. Later Imam Muslim compiled his book with a primary focus on the isnad (different chain of narrators). Imam Nasa'i's aim was to mention the discrepancies of the hadith whilst Abu Dawud prepared a book which became the basis for the fuqaha. Imam Tirmidhi had combined the styles of Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud and Nasa'i by mentioning the discrepancies regarding the narrators and also making his compilation a basis for the jurists.
The Special characteristics of al-Jami` ut-Tirmidhi
1. It is a Sunan and a Jami`.
2. Only 83 hadith are repeated.
3. Imam Tirmidhi omits the major portion of the hadith and only mentions that part which is relevant to the heading. (title)
4. After mentioning a hadith he classifies it narration (whether it is authentic or weak, etc.)
5. He specifies the narrators names, e.g. if the narrators kunya (honorific name) was mentioned, he would then mention his proper name and vice versa.
6. One hadith in Tirmidhi is a thulaathiyaat i.e. the transmitters of the hadith betwen Imam Tirmidhi and the Prophet (s) are only three.
7. Every hadith in Tirmidhi al-Jami` is "ma'mul bihi" (practised upon by the jurists.)
8. He explains the different madhahib together with their proofs.
9. He gives an explanation to all difficult ahadith.
10. His book has been set out in an excellent sequence, hence to look for a hadith is very easy.
11. There is no fabricated hadith in the entire book.
The conditions of Imam Tirmidhi in the selection of hadith
According to the commentators of Al-Jami Imam Tirmidhi maintained the following conditions throughout the compilation of his book.
1. He never narrated hadith from those who fabricated hadith. 2. Allama Tahir Muqaddisi mentions that al-Jami` ut-Tirmidhicontains four types of hadith:
[1] Those ahadith that conform with the conditions of Bukhari and Muslim.
[2] Those ahadith that conform with the conditions of Abu Dawud and Nasa'i.
[3] Those ahadith that have certain discrepancies either in the sanad or matan.
[4] Those weak hadith that some fuqaha have relied on.
3. Imam Tirmidhi accepts a hadith which is narrated with the word "a'n" provided both the narrators are contemporaries. 4. After mentioning a weak hadith, he explains the state of its weakness. 5. A mursal hadith is accepted by Imam Tirmidhi when it is supported by a chain of narrators which is not broken.
The status of al-Jami` ut-Tirmidhi among the six authentic books of hadith. al-Jami` ut-Tirmidhi has been categorized as fifth amongst the six most authentic books of hadith. According to the most preferred opinion, Bukhari enjoys the highest status, followed by Muslim, Abu Dawood, Nasai, Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah respectively. Haji Khalifa in al-Kashf al-Dhunoon has categorised Tirmidhi in third position. Al-Dhahabi has written that Tirmidhi in actual fact should be holding the third position, but due to him bringing weak narrators like Kalbi and Masloob its status has dropped. However, looking at the manner in which he set out his book it seems that Haji Khalifa's opinion is best.
Some of the commentaries of Tirmidhi
{1.} 'A'ridat-ul-Ahwazi
An Arabic compilation of Qadi Abu Bakr ibn `Arabi (r) in 7 volumes.
{2} Qut-ul Mughtazi
Compiled by Jalal ad-Din Suyuti (r).
{3} Tuhfat-ul Ahwadhi
Written by Sheikh Abdur Rahmaan Mubaarakpuri in 10 volumes. He is very critical against the Ahnaaf.
The Terminology of Imam Tirmidhi
The classification of hadith was firmly established by Ali ibn Madini (r) and later by his student Imam Bukhari (r). However Imam Tirmidhi was the first Imam to base his book on these classifications.
Imam Tirmidhi classifies most of the Ahadith and mentions its reliability. Altogether Imam Tirmidhi uses nine different terms.
1.) sahih: That hadith wherein each reporter must be trustworthy, he must have the power of retention and the sanad of the hadith must go back to Nabi (sallallahu alyhi wasallam) without any interruption, it must agree with those of other reliable reporters and there should be no hidden defect in the matan or the sanad. N.B. Imam Tirmidhi does not consider it a prerequisite that a sahih Hadith must have several chains of narrators.
2.) hasan: That hadith which does not contain a reporter accused of lying, it is not shaaz and the hadith has been reported through more than one sanad.
3.) da`eef: Such a hadith wherein the narrators are not trustworthy, or they don't posses the ability of retaining, or there is a break in the chain of narrators, or the hadith is shaaz or mu'alall.
4.) gharib: According to Imam Tirmidhi a hadith is classified gharib for one of the following reasons..
(a) it is narrated from one chain only.
(b) there is some addition in the text.
(c) it is narrated through various chains of transmitters but having within one of its chains an addition in the sanad.
5.) hasan gharib: These two can be combined. i.e. hasan refers to the uprighteousness of the narrators whilst gharib implies that he is alone in transmitting the hadith.
6.) sahih gharib: This term implies that the hadith is authentic but there is only one sanad.
7.) hasan sahih gharib: This hadith is hasan since it has several chains of transmitters, it is sahih as the chains are all authentic and it is gharib in the words that Imam Tirmidhi narrated.
8.) hasan sahih: This term has caused much confusion amongst the Muhadditheen since hasan is lower in rank than sahih. While sahih indicates to the excellent retention power of a narrator, hasan indicates to a deficiency in this regard hence it seems that both are opposites and is not possible to reconcile. The mutaqaddimeen have given many explanations to this :
[1] Ibn Hajar (r) has mentioned that the word "aw" is omitted hence the hadith will be either hasan or sahih. [2] Ibn Salah is of the opinion that when a hadith is reported with two sanads, one should be considered as hasan and the other as sahih. [3] Ibn Kathir says that Imam Tirmidhi has made up a new term which implies the hadith to be higher than hasan but lower than sahih. [4] Ibn Daqiq ul `Eid is of this opinion that sahih and hasan are not opposites. Rather they belong to the same category. However hasan will be considered as inferior to sahih hence they both can be combined. This opinion has been given most preference by the Muhadditheen.
CONCLUSION
By the third century A.H. a number of collections on hadith were compiled. Imam Tirmidhi was one of those scholars who contributed greatly towards this field of hadith. In this modern age the world at large is deeply indebted to Imam Tirmidhi for his compilation of hadith. May Allah swt make it possible for all of us to benefit tremendously from this priceless collection of hadith.
Imam Tirmidhi was born in the year 209 A.H. during the reign of the Abbasid Khalifa Ma'mun al-Rashid. The Abbasid Caliphate, despite its brilliant contributions to Islam, brought along with it many thorny problems. Greek Philosophy had a free flow into the Islamic world. This was fully sanctioned by the government until eventually it declared the Mu'tazila school of thought as the state religion. Anyone who opposed the Mu'tazila school of thought would be opposing the state. With the influence of Greek philosophy infiltrating within the people, many Muslims began attempting to reconcile between reason and revelation. As a result they deviated themselves and misled many innocent weak Muslims away from Allah and His Prophet (s). Many scholars of Islam had come to the fore in order to defend the Shari`ah. Forgeries and interpolations in Hadith by rulers who wished to fulfil their personal motives was common. In the first century `Umar bin Abdul `Aziz (r) initiated a movement for the compilation of the holy hadith of the the Prophet (s) as there was a fear of it being lost. Eventually this gigantic task was undertaken by six towering scholars of Islam. One of them was Imam Abu `Isa Muhammed ibn `Isa Tirmidhi
Having grown up in an environment of learning, together with possessing many great qualities naturally drove Imam Tirmidhi to dedicate his life totally towards the field of Hadith. He obtained his basic knowledge at home and later travelled to far off lands in search of this great science. He studied Hadith under great personalities such as Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim and Imam Abu Dawud. In some narrations Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim are his students as well.
Once Imam Bukhari mentioned to him "I have benefited more from you than you have benefitted from me." Musa ibn `Alaq once said: "When Imam Bukhari passed away, he left no one in Khurasan who compared with Abu `Isa Tirmidhi in knowledge, memory, piety and abstinence." According to `Abdullah ibn Muhammed Al-Ansari, Imam Tirmidhi's Al-Jami` is more beneficial than the works of Bukhari and Muslim since their compilations can only be understood by a very deep sighted scholar whereas Al-Jami` can be understood by both the scholar and the layman.
Imam Tirmidhi said that he compiled this book and presented it to the learned of Hijaz, Iraq and Khurasan and they were pleased with it. Who ever has this book in his home, it is as though he has the Prophet (s) speaking to him there.
His remarkable memory:
Imam Tirmidhi had an exceptionally remarkable memory. If he heard something once he never forgot it. Once on his way to Makkah, Imam Tirmidhi met a scholar of hadith (muhaddith) from whom he had previously copied two chapters of hadith. Thinking that he had the notes with him he asked the scholar if he would allow him to read out these two chapters so that he could correct any errors. After realizing that he did not have those notes with him he took a blank piece of paper and read out the entire two parts from memory. When the muhaddith realized what he was doing he rebuked Imam Tirmidhi saying: "Have you no shame, why are you wasting my time." Imam Tirmidhi assured him that he had committed all the ahadith to memory. The scholar was not convinced, even though Imam Tirmidhi had recited all the hadith from memory. Imam Tirmidhi requested him to recite to him some other hadith. The scholar recited forty ahadith which Imam Tirmidhi thenrepeated without making a single error, thus showing his remarkable power of committing hadith to memory.
Another incident has been recorded by Hakim ul-Ummat in his Al-Misk-us-Zaki, depicting the profound memory of Imam Tirmidhi. He writes:
Imam Tirmidhi had lost his sight towards the latter portion of his life. Once whilst on a journey, at a certain point he bowed his head. When asked as to why he did this, he replied: "Is there not a tree here whose branches hang over in such a manner that it harms those who are passing by." They answered in the negative. He was quite shocked when he heard this as he distinctly remembered there being a tree and was worried as to whether his memory was failing him or not. He stopped the caravan immediately and asked his companions to enquire from the locals whether a tree had existed there or not. "If it is established that no tree existed then I will stop narrating the Hadith of the Prophet (s) due to my weak memory." On inquiry it was shown to them that a tree had previously existed over there but due to it being a hindrance to travelers it was removed.
Imam Tirmidhi had a large number of students from all over the world. The most famous amongst them were Haysam ibn Kulaib, Abul Abbaas and Muhammed ibn Ahmed Shah Abdul `Aziz describes Imam Tirmidhi in the following words: "His memory was unique and his piety and fear of Allah ta'la was of a very high caliber. He would cry so much out of the fear of Allah, that towards the end of his life he lost his sight."
According to Ibn Taymiyya and Shah Waliullah, Imam Timidhi was an independent Jurist (Mujtahid). Moulana Anwar Shah Kashmiri is of the opinion that he was a Shafi`i.
In the year 279 A.H. in a village called Bawag at the age of 70 , Imam Tirmidhi left this temporary abode for the everlasting life of the hereafter. May Allah swt fill his grave with light. The enormity of his sacrifices and the extent to which he served the religion can never be fully comprehended.
Many books of hadith were compiled before Imam Tirmidhi decided to compile his Al-Jami`. Dawud Tayalisi and Ahmed ibn Hanbal had compiled books consisting of both authentic and weak hadith. Later Imam Bukhari compiled his Sahih and omitted all weak narrations from it. His main objective was to derive masa'il / laws from the relevant hadith. Later Imam Muslim compiled his book with a primary focus on the isnad (different chain of narrators). Imam Nasa'i's aim was to mention the discrepancies of the hadith whilst Abu Dawud prepared a book which became the basis for the fuqaha. Imam Tirmidhi had combined the styles of Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud and Nasa'i by mentioning the discrepancies regarding the narrators and also making his compilation a basis for the jurists.
The Special characteristics of al-Jami` ut-Tirmidhi
1. It is a Sunan and a Jami`.
2. Only 83 hadith are repeated.
3. Imam Tirmidhi omits the major portion of the hadith and only mentions that part which is relevant to the heading. (title)
4. After mentioning a hadith he classifies it narration (whether it is authentic or weak, etc.)
5. He specifies the narrators names, e.g. if the narrators kunya (honorific name) was mentioned, he would then mention his proper name and vice versa.
6. One hadith in Tirmidhi is a thulaathiyaat i.e. the transmitters of the hadith betwen Imam Tirmidhi and the Prophet (s) are only three.
7. Every hadith in Tirmidhi al-Jami` is "ma'mul bihi" (practised upon by the jurists.)
8. He explains the different madhahib together with their proofs.
9. He gives an explanation to all difficult ahadith.
10. His book has been set out in an excellent sequence, hence to look for a hadith is very easy.
11. There is no fabricated hadith in the entire book.
The conditions of Imam Tirmidhi in the selection of hadith
According to the commentators of Al-Jami Imam Tirmidhi maintained the following conditions throughout the compilation of his book.
1. He never narrated hadith from those who fabricated hadith. 2. Allama Tahir Muqaddisi mentions that al-Jami` ut-Tirmidhicontains four types of hadith:
[1] Those ahadith that conform with the conditions of Bukhari and Muslim.
[2] Those ahadith that conform with the conditions of Abu Dawud and Nasa'i.
[3] Those ahadith that have certain discrepancies either in the sanad or matan.
[4] Those weak hadith that some fuqaha have relied on.
3. Imam Tirmidhi accepts a hadith which is narrated with the word "a'n" provided both the narrators are contemporaries. 4. After mentioning a weak hadith, he explains the state of its weakness. 5. A mursal hadith is accepted by Imam Tirmidhi when it is supported by a chain of narrators which is not broken.
The status of al-Jami` ut-Tirmidhi among the six authentic books of hadith. al-Jami` ut-Tirmidhi has been categorized as fifth amongst the six most authentic books of hadith. According to the most preferred opinion, Bukhari enjoys the highest status, followed by Muslim, Abu Dawood, Nasai, Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah respectively. Haji Khalifa in al-Kashf al-Dhunoon has categorised Tirmidhi in third position. Al-Dhahabi has written that Tirmidhi in actual fact should be holding the third position, but due to him bringing weak narrators like Kalbi and Masloob its status has dropped. However, looking at the manner in which he set out his book it seems that Haji Khalifa's opinion is best.
Some of the commentaries of Tirmidhi
{1.} 'A'ridat-ul-Ahwazi
An Arabic compilation of Qadi Abu Bakr ibn `Arabi (r) in 7 volumes.
{2} Qut-ul Mughtazi
Compiled by Jalal ad-Din Suyuti (r).
{3} Tuhfat-ul Ahwadhi
Written by Sheikh Abdur Rahmaan Mubaarakpuri in 10 volumes. He is very critical against the Ahnaaf.
The Terminology of Imam Tirmidhi
The classification of hadith was firmly established by Ali ibn Madini (r) and later by his student Imam Bukhari (r). However Imam Tirmidhi was the first Imam to base his book on these classifications.
Imam Tirmidhi classifies most of the Ahadith and mentions its reliability. Altogether Imam Tirmidhi uses nine different terms.
1.) sahih: That hadith wherein each reporter must be trustworthy, he must have the power of retention and the sanad of the hadith must go back to Nabi (sallallahu alyhi wasallam) without any interruption, it must agree with those of other reliable reporters and there should be no hidden defect in the matan or the sanad. N.B. Imam Tirmidhi does not consider it a prerequisite that a sahih Hadith must have several chains of narrators.
2.) hasan: That hadith which does not contain a reporter accused of lying, it is not shaaz and the hadith has been reported through more than one sanad.
3.) da`eef: Such a hadith wherein the narrators are not trustworthy, or they don't posses the ability of retaining, or there is a break in the chain of narrators, or the hadith is shaaz or mu'alall.
4.) gharib: According to Imam Tirmidhi a hadith is classified gharib for one of the following reasons..
(a) it is narrated from one chain only.
(b) there is some addition in the text.
(c) it is narrated through various chains of transmitters but having within one of its chains an addition in the sanad.
5.) hasan gharib: These two can be combined. i.e. hasan refers to the uprighteousness of the narrators whilst gharib implies that he is alone in transmitting the hadith.
6.) sahih gharib: This term implies that the hadith is authentic but there is only one sanad.
7.) hasan sahih gharib: This hadith is hasan since it has several chains of transmitters, it is sahih as the chains are all authentic and it is gharib in the words that Imam Tirmidhi narrated.
8.) hasan sahih: This term has caused much confusion amongst the Muhadditheen since hasan is lower in rank than sahih. While sahih indicates to the excellent retention power of a narrator, hasan indicates to a deficiency in this regard hence it seems that both are opposites and is not possible to reconcile. The mutaqaddimeen have given many explanations to this :
[1] Ibn Hajar (r) has mentioned that the word "aw" is omitted hence the hadith will be either hasan or sahih. [2] Ibn Salah is of the opinion that when a hadith is reported with two sanads, one should be considered as hasan and the other as sahih. [3] Ibn Kathir says that Imam Tirmidhi has made up a new term which implies the hadith to be higher than hasan but lower than sahih. [4] Ibn Daqiq ul `Eid is of this opinion that sahih and hasan are not opposites. Rather they belong to the same category. However hasan will be considered as inferior to sahih hence they both can be combined. This opinion has been given most preference by the Muhadditheen.
CONCLUSION
By the third century A.H. a number of collections on hadith were compiled. Imam Tirmidhi was one of those scholars who contributed greatly towards this field of hadith. In this modern age the world at large is deeply indebted to Imam Tirmidhi for his compilation of hadith. May Allah swt make it possible for all of us to benefit tremendously from this priceless collection of hadith.
Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal
Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hanbal, Abu `Abd Allah al-Dhuhli al-Shaybani al-Marwazi al-Baghdadi (d. 241). Al-Dhahabi says of him: "The true Shaykh of Islam and leader of the Muslims in his time, the hadith master and proof of the Religion. He took hadith from Hushaym, Ibrahim ibn Sa`d, Sufyan ibn `Uyayna, `Abbad ibn `Abbad, Yahya ibn Abi Za’ida, and their layer. From him narrated al-Bukhari [two hadiths in the Sahih], Muslim [22], Abu Dawud [254], Abu Zur`a, Mutayyan, `Abd Allah ibn Ahmad, Abu al-Qasim al-Baghawi, and a huge array of scholars. His father was a soldier û one of those who called to Islam û and he died young." Al-Dhahabi continues:
`Abd Allah ibn Ahmad said: "I heard Abu Zur`a [al-Razi] say: ‘Your father had memorized a million hadiths, which I rehearsed with him according to topic.’"
Hanbal said: "I heard Abu `Abd Allah say: ‘I memorized everything which I heard from Hushaym when he was alive.’"
Ibrahim al-Harbi said: "I held Ahmad as one for whom Allah had gathered up the combined knowledge of the first and the last."
Harmala said: "I heard al-Shafi`i say: ‘I left Baghdad and did not leave behind me anyone more virtuous (afdal), more learned (a`lam), more knowledgeable (afqah) than Ahmad ibn Hanbal.’"
`Ali ibn al-Madini said: "Truly, Allah reinforced this Religion with Abu Bakr al-Siddiq the day of the Great Apostasy (al-Ridda), and He reinforced it with Ahmad ibn Hanbal the day of the Inquisition (al-Mihna)."
Abu `Ubayd said: "The Science at its peak is in the custody of four men, of whom Ahmad ibn Hanbal is the most knowledgeable."
Ibn Ma`in said, as related by `Abbas [al-Duri]: "They meant for me to be like Ahmad, but û by Allah! û I shall never in my life compare to him."
Muhammad ibn Hammad al-Taharani said: "I heard Abu Thawr say: ‘Ahmad is more learned û or knowledgeable û than al-Thawri.’"
Al-Dhahabi concludes: "Al-Bayhaqi wrote Abu `Abd Allah’s biography (sîra) in one volume, so did Ibn al-Jawzi, and also Shaykh al-Islam [`Abd Allah al-Harawi] al-Ansari in a brief volume. He passed on to Allah’s good pleasure on the day of Jum`a, the twelfth of Rabi` al-Awwal in the year 241, at the age of seventy-seven. I have two of his short-chained narrations (`awâlîh), and a licence (ijâza) for the entire Musnad." Al-Dhahabi’s chapter on Imam Ahmad in Siyar A`lam al-Nubala’ counts no less than 113 pages.
One of the misunderstandings prevalent among the "Salafis" who misrepresent Imam Ahmad’s school today is his position regarding kalâm or dialectic theology. It is known that he was uncompromisingly opposed to kalâm as a method, even if used as a means to defend the truth, preferring to stick to the plain narration of textual proofs and abandoning all recourse to dialectical or rational ones. Ibn al-Jawzi relates his saying: "Do not sit with the people of kalâm, even if they defend the Sunna." This attitude is at the root of his disavowal of al-Muhasibi. It also explains the disaffection of later Hanbalis towards Imam al-Ash`ari and his school, despite his subsequent standing as the Imam of Sunni Muslims par excellence. The reasons for this rift are now obsolete although the rift has amplified beyond all recognizable shape, as it is evident, in retrospect, that opposition to Ash`aris, for various reasons, came out of a major misunderstanding of their actual contributions within the Community, whether as individuals or as a whole.
There are several general reasons why the Hanbali-mutakallim rift should be considered artificial and obsolete. First, kalâm in its original form was an innovation in Islam (bid`a) against which there was unanimous opposition among Ahl al-Sunna. The first to use kalâm were true innovators opposed to the Sunna, and in the language of the early scholars kalâm was synonymous with the doctrines of the Qadariyya, Murji’a, Jahmiyya, Jabriyya, Rawâfid, and Mu`tazila and their multifarious sub-sects. This is shown by the examples Ibn Qutayba gives of kalâm and mutakallimûn in his book Mukhtalif al-Hadith, none of which belongs to Ahl al-Sunna. Similarly the adherents of kalâm brought up in the speech of al-Hasan al-Basri, Ibn al-Mubarak, Ibn Rahuyah, Imam al-Shafi`i and the rest of the pre-Hanbali scholars of hadith are the innovators of the above-mentioned sects, not those who later opposed them using the same methods of reasoning. The latter cannot be put in the same category. Therefore the early blames of kalâm cannot be applied to them in the same breath with the innovators.
Second, there is difference of opinion among the Salaf on the possible use of kalâm to defend the Sunna, notwithstanding Imam Ahmad’s position quoted above. One reason why they disallowed it is wara`: because of extreme scrupulousness against learning and practicing a discipline initiated by the enemies of the Sunna. Thus they considered kalâm reprehensible but not forbidden, as is clear from their statements. For example, Ibn Abi Hatim narrated that al-Shafi`i said: "If I wanted to publish books refuting every single opponent [of the Sunna] I could easily do so, but kalâm is not for me, and I dislike that anything of it be attributed to me." This shows that al-Shafi`i left the door open for others to enter a field which he abstained from entering out of strict Godwariness.
Third, kalâm is a difficult, delicate science which demands a mind above the norm. The imams forbade it as a sadd al-dharî`a or pre-empting measure. They rightly foresaw that unless one possessed an adequate capacity to practice it, one was courting disaster. This was the case with Ahmad’s student Abu Talib, and other early Hanbalis who misinterpreted Ahmad’s doctrinal positions as Bukhari himself stated. Bukhari, Ahmad, and others of the Salaf thus experienced first hand that one who played with kalâm could easily lapse into heresy, innovation, or disbelief. This was made abundantly clear in Imam Malik’s answer to the man who asked how Allah established Himself over the Throne: "The establishment is known, the ‘how’ is inconceivable, and to ask about it is an innovation!" Malik’s answer is the essence of kalâm at the same time as it warns against the misuse of kalâm, as observed by the late Dr. Abu al-Wafa’ al-Taftazani. Malik’s reasoning is echoed by al-Shafi`i’s advice to his student al-Muzani: "Take proofs from creation in order to know about the Creator, and do not burden yourself with the knowledge of what your mind did not reach." Similarly, Ibn Khuzayma and Ibn Abi Hatim admitted their technical ignorance of the science of kalâm, at the same time acknowledging its possible good use by qualified experts. As for Ibn Qutayba, he regretted his kalâm days and preferred to steer completely clear of it.
In conclusion, any careful reader of Islamic intellectual history can see that if the Ash`ari scholars of kalâm had not engaged and defeated the various theological and philosophical sects on their own terrain, the silence of Ahl al-Sunna might well have sealed their defeat at the hands of their opponents. This was indicated by Taj al-Din al-Subki who spoke of the obligatoriness of kalâm in certain specific circumstances, as opposed to its superfluousness in other times. "The use of kalâm in case of necessity is a legal obligation (wajib), and to keep silence about kalâm in case other than necessity is a sunna."
The biographical notice on Imam Ahmad in the Reliance of the Traveller reads: "Out of piety, Imam Ahmad never gave a formal legal opinion (fatwa) while Shafi`i was in Iraq, and when he later formulated his school of jurisprudence, he mainly drew on explicit texts from the [Qur’an], hadith, and scholarly consensus, with relatively little expansion from analogical reasoning (qiyâs). He was probably the most learned in the sciences of hadith of the four great Imams of Sacred Law, and his students included many of the foremost scholars of hadith. Abu Dawud said of him: ‘Ahmad’s gatherings were gatherings of the afterlife: nothing of this world was mentioned. Never once did I hear him mention this-worldly things.’ ... He never once missed praying in the night, and used to recite the entire [Qur’an] daily. He said, ‘I saw the Lord of Power in my sleep, and said, "O Lord, what is the best act through which those near to You draw nearer?" and He answered, "Through [reciting] (sic) My word, O Ahmad." I asked, "With understanding, or without?" and He answered, "With understanding and without."’. . . Ahmad was imprisoned and tortured for twenty-eight months under the Abbasid caliph al-Mu`tasim in an effort to force him to publicly espouse the [Mu`tazila] position that the Holy [Qur’an] was created, but the Imam bore up unflinchingly under the persecution and refused to renounce the belief of Ahl al-Sunna that the [Qur’an] is the uncreated word of Allah, after which Allah delivered and vindicated him. When Ahmad died in 241/855, he was accompanied to his resting place by a funeral procession of eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women, marking the departure of the last of the four great mujtahid Imams of Islam."
Ibn al-Jawzi narrates from Bilal al-Khawass that the latter met al-Khidr and asked him: "What do you say of al-Shafi`i?" He said: "One of the Pillar-Saints (Awtâd)." "Ahmad ibn Hanbal?" "He is a Siddîq."
`Abd Allah ibn Ahmad said: "I heard Abu Zur`a [al-Razi] say: ‘Your father had memorized a million hadiths, which I rehearsed with him according to topic.’"
Hanbal said: "I heard Abu `Abd Allah say: ‘I memorized everything which I heard from Hushaym when he was alive.’"
Ibrahim al-Harbi said: "I held Ahmad as one for whom Allah had gathered up the combined knowledge of the first and the last."
Harmala said: "I heard al-Shafi`i say: ‘I left Baghdad and did not leave behind me anyone more virtuous (afdal), more learned (a`lam), more knowledgeable (afqah) than Ahmad ibn Hanbal.’"
`Ali ibn al-Madini said: "Truly, Allah reinforced this Religion with Abu Bakr al-Siddiq the day of the Great Apostasy (al-Ridda), and He reinforced it with Ahmad ibn Hanbal the day of the Inquisition (al-Mihna)."
Abu `Ubayd said: "The Science at its peak is in the custody of four men, of whom Ahmad ibn Hanbal is the most knowledgeable."
Ibn Ma`in said, as related by `Abbas [al-Duri]: "They meant for me to be like Ahmad, but û by Allah! û I shall never in my life compare to him."
Muhammad ibn Hammad al-Taharani said: "I heard Abu Thawr say: ‘Ahmad is more learned û or knowledgeable û than al-Thawri.’"
Al-Dhahabi concludes: "Al-Bayhaqi wrote Abu `Abd Allah’s biography (sîra) in one volume, so did Ibn al-Jawzi, and also Shaykh al-Islam [`Abd Allah al-Harawi] al-Ansari in a brief volume. He passed on to Allah’s good pleasure on the day of Jum`a, the twelfth of Rabi` al-Awwal in the year 241, at the age of seventy-seven. I have two of his short-chained narrations (`awâlîh), and a licence (ijâza) for the entire Musnad." Al-Dhahabi’s chapter on Imam Ahmad in Siyar A`lam al-Nubala’ counts no less than 113 pages.
One of the misunderstandings prevalent among the "Salafis" who misrepresent Imam Ahmad’s school today is his position regarding kalâm or dialectic theology. It is known that he was uncompromisingly opposed to kalâm as a method, even if used as a means to defend the truth, preferring to stick to the plain narration of textual proofs and abandoning all recourse to dialectical or rational ones. Ibn al-Jawzi relates his saying: "Do not sit with the people of kalâm, even if they defend the Sunna." This attitude is at the root of his disavowal of al-Muhasibi. It also explains the disaffection of later Hanbalis towards Imam al-Ash`ari and his school, despite his subsequent standing as the Imam of Sunni Muslims par excellence. The reasons for this rift are now obsolete although the rift has amplified beyond all recognizable shape, as it is evident, in retrospect, that opposition to Ash`aris, for various reasons, came out of a major misunderstanding of their actual contributions within the Community, whether as individuals or as a whole.
There are several general reasons why the Hanbali-mutakallim rift should be considered artificial and obsolete. First, kalâm in its original form was an innovation in Islam (bid`a) against which there was unanimous opposition among Ahl al-Sunna. The first to use kalâm were true innovators opposed to the Sunna, and in the language of the early scholars kalâm was synonymous with the doctrines of the Qadariyya, Murji’a, Jahmiyya, Jabriyya, Rawâfid, and Mu`tazila and their multifarious sub-sects. This is shown by the examples Ibn Qutayba gives of kalâm and mutakallimûn in his book Mukhtalif al-Hadith, none of which belongs to Ahl al-Sunna. Similarly the adherents of kalâm brought up in the speech of al-Hasan al-Basri, Ibn al-Mubarak, Ibn Rahuyah, Imam al-Shafi`i and the rest of the pre-Hanbali scholars of hadith are the innovators of the above-mentioned sects, not those who later opposed them using the same methods of reasoning. The latter cannot be put in the same category. Therefore the early blames of kalâm cannot be applied to them in the same breath with the innovators.
Second, there is difference of opinion among the Salaf on the possible use of kalâm to defend the Sunna, notwithstanding Imam Ahmad’s position quoted above. One reason why they disallowed it is wara`: because of extreme scrupulousness against learning and practicing a discipline initiated by the enemies of the Sunna. Thus they considered kalâm reprehensible but not forbidden, as is clear from their statements. For example, Ibn Abi Hatim narrated that al-Shafi`i said: "If I wanted to publish books refuting every single opponent [of the Sunna] I could easily do so, but kalâm is not for me, and I dislike that anything of it be attributed to me." This shows that al-Shafi`i left the door open for others to enter a field which he abstained from entering out of strict Godwariness.
Third, kalâm is a difficult, delicate science which demands a mind above the norm. The imams forbade it as a sadd al-dharî`a or pre-empting measure. They rightly foresaw that unless one possessed an adequate capacity to practice it, one was courting disaster. This was the case with Ahmad’s student Abu Talib, and other early Hanbalis who misinterpreted Ahmad’s doctrinal positions as Bukhari himself stated. Bukhari, Ahmad, and others of the Salaf thus experienced first hand that one who played with kalâm could easily lapse into heresy, innovation, or disbelief. This was made abundantly clear in Imam Malik’s answer to the man who asked how Allah established Himself over the Throne: "The establishment is known, the ‘how’ is inconceivable, and to ask about it is an innovation!" Malik’s answer is the essence of kalâm at the same time as it warns against the misuse of kalâm, as observed by the late Dr. Abu al-Wafa’ al-Taftazani. Malik’s reasoning is echoed by al-Shafi`i’s advice to his student al-Muzani: "Take proofs from creation in order to know about the Creator, and do not burden yourself with the knowledge of what your mind did not reach." Similarly, Ibn Khuzayma and Ibn Abi Hatim admitted their technical ignorance of the science of kalâm, at the same time acknowledging its possible good use by qualified experts. As for Ibn Qutayba, he regretted his kalâm days and preferred to steer completely clear of it.
In conclusion, any careful reader of Islamic intellectual history can see that if the Ash`ari scholars of kalâm had not engaged and defeated the various theological and philosophical sects on their own terrain, the silence of Ahl al-Sunna might well have sealed their defeat at the hands of their opponents. This was indicated by Taj al-Din al-Subki who spoke of the obligatoriness of kalâm in certain specific circumstances, as opposed to its superfluousness in other times. "The use of kalâm in case of necessity is a legal obligation (wajib), and to keep silence about kalâm in case other than necessity is a sunna."
The biographical notice on Imam Ahmad in the Reliance of the Traveller reads: "Out of piety, Imam Ahmad never gave a formal legal opinion (fatwa) while Shafi`i was in Iraq, and when he later formulated his school of jurisprudence, he mainly drew on explicit texts from the [Qur’an], hadith, and scholarly consensus, with relatively little expansion from analogical reasoning (qiyâs). He was probably the most learned in the sciences of hadith of the four great Imams of Sacred Law, and his students included many of the foremost scholars of hadith. Abu Dawud said of him: ‘Ahmad’s gatherings were gatherings of the afterlife: nothing of this world was mentioned. Never once did I hear him mention this-worldly things.’ ... He never once missed praying in the night, and used to recite the entire [Qur’an] daily. He said, ‘I saw the Lord of Power in my sleep, and said, "O Lord, what is the best act through which those near to You draw nearer?" and He answered, "Through [reciting] (sic) My word, O Ahmad." I asked, "With understanding, or without?" and He answered, "With understanding and without."’. . . Ahmad was imprisoned and tortured for twenty-eight months under the Abbasid caliph al-Mu`tasim in an effort to force him to publicly espouse the [Mu`tazila] position that the Holy [Qur’an] was created, but the Imam bore up unflinchingly under the persecution and refused to renounce the belief of Ahl al-Sunna that the [Qur’an] is the uncreated word of Allah, after which Allah delivered and vindicated him. When Ahmad died in 241/855, he was accompanied to his resting place by a funeral procession of eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women, marking the departure of the last of the four great mujtahid Imams of Islam."
Ibn al-Jawzi narrates from Bilal al-Khawass that the latter met al-Khidr and asked him: "What do you say of al-Shafi`i?" He said: "One of the Pillar-Saints (Awtâd)." "Ahmad ibn Hanbal?" "He is a Siddîq."
Imam al-Bayhaqi
Ahmad ibn al-Husayn ibn `Ali ibn `Abd Allah ibn Musa, Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi al-Naysaburi al-Khusrawjirdi al-Shafi`i al-Ash`ari (384-458), “the jurisprudent imam, hadith master, authority in the foundations of doctrine (usuli), scrupulous and devoted ascetic, defender of the School both in its foundations and its branches, one of the mountains of Islamic knowledge.” He is known in the books of the scholars of Naysabur and his direct students as “al-faqih Ahmad.” He took fiqh from the imam Abu al-Fath Nasir ibn al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Qurashi al-`Umari al-Marwazi al-Shafi`i al-Naysaburi (d. 444) among others.
Al-Bayhaqi belongs to the the third generation of Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Ash`ari’s students and took kalam from the two Ash`ari imams Ibn Furak and Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi. His oldest shaykh was the imam and hadith scholar of Khurasan al-Sayyid Abu al-Hasan Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Dawud al-`Alawi al-Hasani al-Naysaburi al-Hasib (d. 401), who was also the shaykh of the hadith master al-Hakim al-Naysaburi. Al-Bayhaqi’s other shaykhs in hadith include the latter, whose foremost pupil he was; the hadith master Abu `Ali al-Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Rudhabari al-Tusi (d. 403); the Ash`ari imam in the foundations of doctrine Abu Bakr ibn Furak (d. 406); the imam, jurist, philologist, and hadith master of khurasan Abu Tahir Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Mahmish al-Ziyadi al-Shafi`i al-Naysaburi (d. 410); the Sufi master, Ash`ari imam, hadith master, and author of Tabat al-Sufiyya Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Muhammad, Abu `Abd al-Rahman al-Azdi al-Sulami (d. 411); Muhammad bin Hibat Allah al-Lalika’i’s teacher, Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn al-Fadl al-Qattan al-Baghdadi (d. 415); and the Ash`ari imam, jurist, and hereseiologist Abu Mansur `Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi al-Shafi`i (d. 429).
It is noteworthy that neither al-Tirmidhi’s Sunan, nor al-Nasa’i’s, nor Ibn Majah’s were transmitted to al-Bayhaqi, as stated by al-Dhahabi and others. Al-Dhahabi said, “His sphere in hadith is not large, but Allah blessed him in his narrations for the excellence of his method in them and his sagacity and expertise in the subject-matters and narrators.”
His Ascetiscm
Al-Bayhaqi lived frugally in the manner of the pious scholars. He began fasting perpetually thirty years before his death. Perpetual fast (sawm al-dahr) is the practice of several of the Companions and Salaf such as Ibn `Umar, `Uthman, Abu Hanifa, al-Shafi`i, al-Tustari, al-Qurashi al-Zuhri, and others such as al-Nawawi. Ibn Hibban devoted a chapter of his Sahih to the subject in which he said, commenting the hadith of the Prophet (s): “Whoever fasts all his life has neither fasted nor broken his fast”:
He means: whoever fasts all his life including the days in which one was forbidden to fast, such as the days of tashriq and the two `Ids. By the words: ‘he has neither fasted nor broken his fast’ he means that he did not in fact fast all his life in order to reap reward for it. For he did not omit [the fasting of] the days in which he was forbidden to fast. That is why the Prophet (s) said, ‘Whoever fasts all his life, the Fire shall straiten him for this much,’ and he counted ninety on his fingers, meaning the days of his life which he was forbidden to fast. It does not apply to the person who fasts all his life – being strong enough to do so – without the prohibited days.
Imam al-Nawawi said on the topic:
Ibn `Umar fasted permanently, i.e. except the days of `Id and tashriq. This perpetual fast is his way and the way of his father, `Umar ibn al-Khattab, `A’isha, Abu Talha and others of the Salaf as well as al-Shafi`i and other scholars. Their position is that perpetual fasting is not disliked (makruh).
His work
Ibn Qudama states something similar in al-Mughni and adds that the same view is related from Ahmad and Malik, and that after the Prophet’s (s) death Abu Talha fasted permanently for forty years, among other Companions. Ibn Hajar al-Haytami in al-Khayrat al-Hisan similarly relates that Abu Hanifa was never seen eating except at night.
The works of al-Bayhaqi count among the treasures of Islamic knowledge for their meticulousness, reliability, and near-perfection in the estimation of the scholars. Among those which have been published are the following:
Al-Sunan al-Kubra (“The Major Work of the Prophet’s (s) Sunna”) in about ten large volumes, concerning which Ibn al-Subki waid: “No such book was ever compiled in the science with respect to classification, arrangement, and elegance,.”
Ma`arifa al-Sunan wa al-Athar (“The Knowledge of Sunnas and Reports”) in about twenty volumes, which lists the textual evidence of Shafi`i school under fiqh sub-headings. Ibn al-Subki said: “No Shafi`i jurist can do without it.” While his father said,: “He meant by the title: Al-Shafi`i’s Knowledge of the Sunnas and Reports.”
Bayan Khata Man Akhta`a `Ala al-Shafi`i (The Exposition of the Error of Those who have Attributed Error to al-Sahfi`i). This book complements the Sunan and the Ma`rifa in the presentation of the textual evidence of the Shafi`i school.
Al-Mabsut (The Expanded [Reference Book]), on Shafi`i Law.
Al-Asma’ wa al-Sifat (The Divine Names and Attributes), concerning which Ibn al-Subki said: “I do not know anything which compares with it.”
Al-I`tiqad `ala Madhhab al-Salaf Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama`a (Islamic Doctrines According to the School of the Predecessors Which is the School of the People of the Prophet’s (S) Way and Congretgatoin of His Companions) in about forty brief chapters.
Dala’il al-Nubuwwa (The Signs of Prophethood) in about seven volumes, the foremost large ook exclusively devoted to the person of the Prophet (s), as al-Qadi `Iyad’s al-Shifa’ fi Ma`rif Huquq al-Mustafa (The Healing concerning Knowledge of the Elect Prophet’s Rights) is the foremost condensed book on this noble subject.
Shu`ab al-Iman (The Brances of Belief) in about fourteen volumes, in which al-Bayhaqi provides an exhaustive textual commentary on the hadith of the Prophet (s) whereby, “Belief has seventy-odd branches.”
Al-Da`awat al-Kabir (The Major Book of Supplications) in two volumes, which arranges the narrations related to the subject by circumstance, like al-Nawawi’s al-Adhkar and al-Jazari’s similar book.
Al-Zuhd al-Kabir (The Major Book of Asceticism), which arranges the relevant narrations fo the Companions and early Sufis by subject-heading.
Al-Arb`un al-Sughra (The minor Colleciont of Forty Hadith), which is devoted to the purification of the self and the acquisition of high manners.
Al-Khilafiyyat (The Divergences [between al-Shafi`i and Abu Hanifa) of which Ibn al-Subki said: “No-one preceded him in writing a book of this kind, nor followed him in writing its like. It is an independent method in hadith science which is appreciated only by experts in both fiqh and hadith. It is precious for the texts it contains.
Fada’il al-Awqat (Times of Particular Merit [for worship]).
Manaqib al-Shafi`i (The Immense Merits of al-Shafi`i) in two volumes, which al-Nawawi said was the most reliable book on the merits of the Imam. Ibn al-Subki said: “Of al-I`tiqad, Dala’il al-Nubuwwa, Shu’ab al-Iman, Manaqib al-Shafi`i, and al-Da`awat al-Kabir, I swear that none of them has any peer.”
Manaqib al-Imam Ahmad (The The Immense Merits of Imam Ahmad).
Tarikh Hukama al-Islam (History of the Rulers of Islam), Etc.
The Ash`ari school
Ibn al-Subki relates that al-Bayhaqi considered the Prophet’s (s) references to Abu Musa al-Ash`ari’s people to include Abu al-Hasan al-Ash`ari and his school. Al-Bayhaqi said:
The Prophet (s) pointed to Abu Musa al-Ash`ari in relation to the verse: “Allah will bring a people whom He loves and who love Him” (5:54) saying: “They are that man’s people,” due to the tremendous merit and noble rank attributed by this hadith to the imam Abu al-Hasan al-Asha`ri. For he is part of Abu Musa’s people and one of his children who have received knowledge and were granted discernment, and he was singled out for strengthening the Sunna and repressing innovation by producing clear proofs and dispelling doubts. It is most likely that the Prophet (s) named Abu Musa’s people a people beloved by Allah because he knew the soundness of their religion and the strength of their belief. Therefore, whoever leans towards them in the sciences of the foundations of Religion and follows their position in disowning tashbih while adhering to the Book and the Sunna, is one of their number.
Al-Bayhaqi is the last of those who comprehensively compiled the textual evidence of the Shafi`i school including the hadith, the positions of the Imam and his immediate companions. Imam al-Haramayn said: “There is no Shafi`i except he owes a hurge debt to al-Shafi`i, except al-Bayhaqi, to who al-Shafi`i owes a huge for his works which imposed al-Shafi`i’s school and his sayings.” Al-Dhahabi comments: “Abu al-Ma`ali is right! It is as he said, and if al-Bayhaqi had wanted to found a school of Law for himself he woul dhave been able to do so, due to the vastness of his sciences and his thorough knowledge fo juridical differences.” Among al-Shafi`i’s legal positions reported by al-Bayhaqi is the following in his book Fafa’il al-Awqat:
Al-Bayhaqi belongs to the the third generation of Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Ash`ari’s students and took kalam from the two Ash`ari imams Ibn Furak and Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi. His oldest shaykh was the imam and hadith scholar of Khurasan al-Sayyid Abu al-Hasan Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Dawud al-`Alawi al-Hasani al-Naysaburi al-Hasib (d. 401), who was also the shaykh of the hadith master al-Hakim al-Naysaburi. Al-Bayhaqi’s other shaykhs in hadith include the latter, whose foremost pupil he was; the hadith master Abu `Ali al-Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Rudhabari al-Tusi (d. 403); the Ash`ari imam in the foundations of doctrine Abu Bakr ibn Furak (d. 406); the imam, jurist, philologist, and hadith master of khurasan Abu Tahir Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Mahmish al-Ziyadi al-Shafi`i al-Naysaburi (d. 410); the Sufi master, Ash`ari imam, hadith master, and author of Tabat al-Sufiyya Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Muhammad, Abu `Abd al-Rahman al-Azdi al-Sulami (d. 411); Muhammad bin Hibat Allah al-Lalika’i’s teacher, Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn al-Fadl al-Qattan al-Baghdadi (d. 415); and the Ash`ari imam, jurist, and hereseiologist Abu Mansur `Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi al-Shafi`i (d. 429).
It is noteworthy that neither al-Tirmidhi’s Sunan, nor al-Nasa’i’s, nor Ibn Majah’s were transmitted to al-Bayhaqi, as stated by al-Dhahabi and others. Al-Dhahabi said, “His sphere in hadith is not large, but Allah blessed him in his narrations for the excellence of his method in them and his sagacity and expertise in the subject-matters and narrators.”
His Ascetiscm
Al-Bayhaqi lived frugally in the manner of the pious scholars. He began fasting perpetually thirty years before his death. Perpetual fast (sawm al-dahr) is the practice of several of the Companions and Salaf such as Ibn `Umar, `Uthman, Abu Hanifa, al-Shafi`i, al-Tustari, al-Qurashi al-Zuhri, and others such as al-Nawawi. Ibn Hibban devoted a chapter of his Sahih to the subject in which he said, commenting the hadith of the Prophet (s): “Whoever fasts all his life has neither fasted nor broken his fast”:
He means: whoever fasts all his life including the days in which one was forbidden to fast, such as the days of tashriq and the two `Ids. By the words: ‘he has neither fasted nor broken his fast’ he means that he did not in fact fast all his life in order to reap reward for it. For he did not omit [the fasting of] the days in which he was forbidden to fast. That is why the Prophet (s) said, ‘Whoever fasts all his life, the Fire shall straiten him for this much,’ and he counted ninety on his fingers, meaning the days of his life which he was forbidden to fast. It does not apply to the person who fasts all his life – being strong enough to do so – without the prohibited days.
Imam al-Nawawi said on the topic:
Ibn `Umar fasted permanently, i.e. except the days of `Id and tashriq. This perpetual fast is his way and the way of his father, `Umar ibn al-Khattab, `A’isha, Abu Talha and others of the Salaf as well as al-Shafi`i and other scholars. Their position is that perpetual fasting is not disliked (makruh).
His work
Ibn Qudama states something similar in al-Mughni and adds that the same view is related from Ahmad and Malik, and that after the Prophet’s (s) death Abu Talha fasted permanently for forty years, among other Companions. Ibn Hajar al-Haytami in al-Khayrat al-Hisan similarly relates that Abu Hanifa was never seen eating except at night.
The works of al-Bayhaqi count among the treasures of Islamic knowledge for their meticulousness, reliability, and near-perfection in the estimation of the scholars. Among those which have been published are the following:
Al-Sunan al-Kubra (“The Major Work of the Prophet’s (s) Sunna”) in about ten large volumes, concerning which Ibn al-Subki waid: “No such book was ever compiled in the science with respect to classification, arrangement, and elegance,.”
Ma`arifa al-Sunan wa al-Athar (“The Knowledge of Sunnas and Reports”) in about twenty volumes, which lists the textual evidence of Shafi`i school under fiqh sub-headings. Ibn al-Subki said: “No Shafi`i jurist can do without it.” While his father said,: “He meant by the title: Al-Shafi`i’s Knowledge of the Sunnas and Reports.”
Bayan Khata Man Akhta`a `Ala al-Shafi`i (The Exposition of the Error of Those who have Attributed Error to al-Sahfi`i). This book complements the Sunan and the Ma`rifa in the presentation of the textual evidence of the Shafi`i school.
Al-Mabsut (The Expanded [Reference Book]), on Shafi`i Law.
Al-Asma’ wa al-Sifat (The Divine Names and Attributes), concerning which Ibn al-Subki said: “I do not know anything which compares with it.”
Al-I`tiqad `ala Madhhab al-Salaf Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama`a (Islamic Doctrines According to the School of the Predecessors Which is the School of the People of the Prophet’s (S) Way and Congretgatoin of His Companions) in about forty brief chapters.
Dala’il al-Nubuwwa (The Signs of Prophethood) in about seven volumes, the foremost large ook exclusively devoted to the person of the Prophet (s), as al-Qadi `Iyad’s al-Shifa’ fi Ma`rif Huquq al-Mustafa (The Healing concerning Knowledge of the Elect Prophet’s Rights) is the foremost condensed book on this noble subject.
Shu`ab al-Iman (The Brances of Belief) in about fourteen volumes, in which al-Bayhaqi provides an exhaustive textual commentary on the hadith of the Prophet (s) whereby, “Belief has seventy-odd branches.”
Al-Da`awat al-Kabir (The Major Book of Supplications) in two volumes, which arranges the narrations related to the subject by circumstance, like al-Nawawi’s al-Adhkar and al-Jazari’s similar book.
Al-Zuhd al-Kabir (The Major Book of Asceticism), which arranges the relevant narrations fo the Companions and early Sufis by subject-heading.
Al-Arb`un al-Sughra (The minor Colleciont of Forty Hadith), which is devoted to the purification of the self and the acquisition of high manners.
Al-Khilafiyyat (The Divergences [between al-Shafi`i and Abu Hanifa) of which Ibn al-Subki said: “No-one preceded him in writing a book of this kind, nor followed him in writing its like. It is an independent method in hadith science which is appreciated only by experts in both fiqh and hadith. It is precious for the texts it contains.
Fada’il al-Awqat (Times of Particular Merit [for worship]).
Manaqib al-Shafi`i (The Immense Merits of al-Shafi`i) in two volumes, which al-Nawawi said was the most reliable book on the merits of the Imam. Ibn al-Subki said: “Of al-I`tiqad, Dala’il al-Nubuwwa, Shu’ab al-Iman, Manaqib al-Shafi`i, and al-Da`awat al-Kabir, I swear that none of them has any peer.”
Manaqib al-Imam Ahmad (The The Immense Merits of Imam Ahmad).
Tarikh Hukama al-Islam (History of the Rulers of Islam), Etc.
The Ash`ari school
Ibn al-Subki relates that al-Bayhaqi considered the Prophet’s (s) references to Abu Musa al-Ash`ari’s people to include Abu al-Hasan al-Ash`ari and his school. Al-Bayhaqi said:
The Prophet (s) pointed to Abu Musa al-Ash`ari in relation to the verse: “Allah will bring a people whom He loves and who love Him” (5:54) saying: “They are that man’s people,” due to the tremendous merit and noble rank attributed by this hadith to the imam Abu al-Hasan al-Asha`ri. For he is part of Abu Musa’s people and one of his children who have received knowledge and were granted discernment, and he was singled out for strengthening the Sunna and repressing innovation by producing clear proofs and dispelling doubts. It is most likely that the Prophet (s) named Abu Musa’s people a people beloved by Allah because he knew the soundness of their religion and the strength of their belief. Therefore, whoever leans towards them in the sciences of the foundations of Religion and follows their position in disowning tashbih while adhering to the Book and the Sunna, is one of their number.
Al-Bayhaqi is the last of those who comprehensively compiled the textual evidence of the Shafi`i school including the hadith, the positions of the Imam and his immediate companions. Imam al-Haramayn said: “There is no Shafi`i except he owes a hurge debt to al-Shafi`i, except al-Bayhaqi, to who al-Shafi`i owes a huge for his works which imposed al-Shafi`i’s school and his sayings.” Al-Dhahabi comments: “Abu al-Ma`ali is right! It is as he said, and if al-Bayhaqi had wanted to found a school of Law for himself he woul dhave been able to do so, due to the vastness of his sciences and his thorough knowledge fo juridical differences.” Among al-Shafi`i’s legal positions reported by al-Bayhaqi is the following in his book Fafa’il al-Awqat:
Thursday, May 5, 2011
The Role of Isnad
[This is an article written by Ustadh Kamal Abu Zahra which explains the paramount importance and critical position of the "isnad" (chain of transmission between the final narrator and source of the narration) in Islam, in its role as a preserver of the Sunnah of the Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Footnotes will be detailed in the final post)
Introduction
The Islamic ideology derives from the Qur’an and Sunnah. Legislation in Islam also derived from these two sources. Therefore if any one of these sources is lost or distorted then the risk is to the ideology as a whole. In this respect the study of Isnad is not a peripheral discipline in Islam but fundamental to the preservation of the ideology itself. Without Isnad the Sunnah as a source of ahkam would cease to exist. Without Isnad we would lose the ability to elaborate, specify and restrict the ambivalent, general and absolute import of the Quranic text since the role of the Sunnah is to clarify the Qur’an. Without Isnad, extraction of Sharee’ah rules for new realities from the Sunnah would cease to exist. Without Isnad foreign elements could have been incorporated within the ideology due to their false attribution to the Prophet (saw). Thus, Isnad is crucial for the purity, clarity and crystallization of the Islamic ideology and its ability to solve new problems from its legislative source. That is why ‘Abdullah b. Mubarak the teacher of Imam al-Bukhari (Rahmatullahi ‘alayhim) did not exaggerate when he said:
"The isnad is part of the Deen: had it not been for the isnad, whoever wished to would have said whatever he liked."
It is also precisely for this reason that the Orientalists, have sought to create doubt in the efficacy of the Isnad. The wholesale rejection of hadith as a historical source was first argued by an Orientalist named Ignaz Goldziher in volume 2 of his book: Muslim Studiess. Goldziger was then followed by Joseph Schact who developed his ideas and tried to present a substantial body of proof to this effect in his work: ‘The origins of Muhammadan jurisprudenc’ which was published in 1950. And more recently Gautier Juynboll in his, Muslim Tradition. Studies in chronology, provenance and authorship of early hadith’ has developed further techniques to prove the false nature of the hadith literature. The general thrust of orientalism since Goldziher has tended to impute doubt, in various degrees, on the corpus of hadith literature. For them the elaborate isnad which the Muslims adduce as proof of authenticity have either been doctored or embellished such that the hadith literature is more a reflection of the time in which they were fabricated, ie the political and sectarian milieu of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, than the time they are supposed to go back to which is the time of the Prophet and his noble companions. This is one of the more serious and fundamental attacks by Orientalists on the Islamic ideology. By throwing doubt on these sources it would be possible to demolish the whole edifice which rests upon them. It was in this vein that attempts were made to discredit the historicity of the hadith literature.
In addition we see the influence of this thought on modernism and modernist thinking where Sunnah as a source of legislation is markedly absent in the political field. Hence we see amongst some Muslims an attitude which considers the Sunnah of lesser importance than the Qur’an simply because the hadith requires further study and scrutiny as compared to the Qur’an. This has led to people either disregarding or neglecting ahkam simply because it is not found explicitly in the Qur’an. Hadiths discussing the unity of the Muslims, the obligation to appoint a Khaleefah, or the ruling that a woman cannot be ruler to name but a few are brushed aside or not given their due weight because they are ‘hadith’ and not an ayah of the Qur’an.
Dr Asghar Ali Engineer in his book The Islamic State says: ‘There is no fixed concept of an Islamic state – much less a divinely ordained one to be treated immutable. The Koran, as pointed out, elucidates a concept of society, not of a state. The theory of Islamic state, as we have seen in the preceding chapters, changed and conformed more to the concrete situations than to any a priori concept.’[1] The hadiths discussing the Khilafah were fabricated by the rulers to justify their rule. He says: ‘In the metamorphosed state set-up there was nothing more Islamic than the fact that the ruler professed Islam and enforced certain provisions of the Sharee’ah in personal and criminal matters. It was the result of such circumstances that a number of traditions were coined justifying any regime which did as little as enforcing the Islamic way of prayer.’ He then proceeds to quote the rigorously authenticated hadith in Sahih Muslim as example of such fabrication. The text of that hadith is: ‘In the near future there will be Amirs and you will like their good deeds and dislike their bad deeds. One who sees through their bad deeds (and tries to prevent their repetition by his hand or through his speech), is absolved from blame, but one who hates their bad deeds (in the heart of his heart, being unable to prevent their recurrence by his hand or his tongue), is (also) safe (so far as God”s wrath is concerned). But one who approves of their bad deeds and imitates them is spiritually ruined. People asked (the Prophet): Shouldn’t we fight against them? He replied: No, as long as they say their prayers.’ This is exactly the view held by Goldziher who claimed that the political hadith literature was a product of the political and sectarian background of the Umayyad caliphate. Recently Dr Engineer gave a presentation in which he sought to prove gender equality and his approach was solely his own personal interpretation of the Qur’an without any recourse to the Hadith. His reason for this is that hadith was recorded a hundred years after the event, they are contradictory or contradict his own reading of the Qur’an and therefore not a reliable source for Tafseer of the Qur’an.
This attitude is dangerous as it is tantamount to disregarding the revelation of Allah (swt) and the reason for this reverts back to the pragmatic view of the Sharee’ah and a sense that Hadith is somehow of lesser worth due to the difficulties posed in establishing its authenticity.
Therefore the aim of this article is to establish the firm conviction in Sunnah as a source of legislation by demonstrating the sophistication and success of the hadith methodology in preserving the Sunnah. However, the way I will be discussing this topic is not to present it as discipline of Musatalah al-Hadith as has been traditionally done but to take relevant aspects of the discipline to give us an outline and conception of the methodology and system itself. As for a detailed refutation of Orientalist arguments and proofs, this will not be possible here due to lack of time but it is thoroughly dealt with in my forthcoming work: ‘The Role of Isnad in the Preservation of the Islamic Civilization’
Historical background and the Birth of Isnad
But before we discuss the key aspects of the hadith methodology I wish to recount the historical background of Isnad so that we can appreciate the context in which the Isnad was born and the problems and challenges Muslims faced in protecting the ideology from the pernicious activities of fabricators.
If we start with the time of the Messenger (saw) we find that questions of authenticity was not an issue since the Prophet was amongst them and the Sahabah were able to correct each other if any mistakes were made in narration. So for example ‘Umar once narrated that the Messenger (saw) said: ‘The deceased is punished due to the weeping of his family’ but ‘Aisha corrected him by saying: ‘The Prophet (saw) said this regarding a Jewess that she was punished whilst her family were crying for her’ meaning that she was punished due to dying upon kufr while the family wept and not because the family was weeping for her.[2] At this time Isnad was at its rudimentary stage because of the proximity to the Prophet (saw) but this did not stop the Sahabah from checking strange attributions or corroborating reports when in doubt.
The earliest record of fabrication of hadith started after the first civil war between Ali and Mu’awiya from 35 A.H following the murder of Uthman. According to Ibn Sirin who died in the year 110 AH: ‘They did not ask about the Isnad but when civil war (fitna) arose they said: Name to us your men; those who belong to Ahl al-Sunnah, their traditions were accepted and those who were innovators their traditions were neglected.’ After this time the fabrications increased with varying motivations. Initially the false attributions reflected political differences. According to Ibn Abi al-Hadid: ‘Lies were introduced in Hadith on merits originally by Shi’a. They in the beginning fabricated many hadith in favor of their man motivated by enmity towards their opponents. When Bakriyya (ie supporters of Abu Bakr) found out what the Shi’a had done they fabricated on their part hadith in favour of their man.’
Disagreements in ‘Aqaa`id also led the unscrupulous to fabricate hadith in support of their sectarian positions. So there are one set of narrations which say that the Prophet (saw) said that Imaan increases and decrease wile another set say Iman does not increase or decrease and all of them are fabricated.
Another faction which fabricated hadith were the Zindeeqs ie people who outwardly manifested Islam but hated it and wanted to destroy it being giving an ridiculous and irrational impression of Islam through their fabrications.
Some fabricated hadith to support the founder of their own school like the report which says: ‘There will be among my Ummah a man named Abu Haneefah who will be the Suraj (light) of my Ummah.’ Or the the fabrication referring to ash-shafi’I which says: ‘There will be among my Ummah a man named Muhammad b. Idrees who will be more harmful to my Ummah than Iblees.’ Other categories of people who fabricated hadith were well intentioned pious people who wanted encourage Ta’aat or the story tellers (Qussas) who wanted to entertain the people with their wild and amazing stories.
The Biographical (rijal) Literature
The first step in verifying a report is to know the reality of the person reporting a piece of news. That is why Allah (swt) says:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنْ جَاءَكُمْ فَاسِقٌ بِنَبَإٍ فَتَبَيَّنُوا أَنْ تُصِيبُوا قَوْمًا بِجَهَالَةٍ فَتُصْبِحُوا عَلَى مَا فَعَلْتُمْ نَادِمِينَ
‘O you who believe! If a Fasiq comes to you with a news, verify it, lest you harm people in ignorance, and afterwards you become regretful to what you have done.’ [49:6]
Here the ‘illah for verifying or scrutinizing a report is the potential harm that will be caused by accepting a false report. It is on the basis of this ayah that the Muhadditheen began to seek out information about narrators in order to verify their narration. But what about recording and publicizing the defects of such narrators, what is the Shar’I justification for doing this? Al-Bukhari reported on the authority of ‘Aisha that: ‘A man asked permission to enter upon Allah’s Apostle. The Prophet said, “Admit him. What an evil brother of his people or a son of his people.” But when the man entered, the Prophet spoke to him in a very polite manner. (And when that person left) I said, “O Allah’s Apostle! You had said what you had said, yet you spoke to him in a very polite manner?” The Prophet said, “O ‘Aisha! The worst people are those whom the people desert or leave in order to save themselves from their dirty language or from their transgression.’ [3] This hadith teaches us that in warning the Muslims from a harm it is allowed to backbite because the man Rasulullah was warning about is one man named ‘Uyaynah b. Hisn who outwardly showed that he was a Muslim thought in reality he was not a Muslim. Rasulullah wanted to warn the people about this man so he said what an evil man he is. This is indicated by the Prophet’s answer to A’isha when she asked him why he used bad language, he replied that he one who used bad language is the worst of people yet he (saw) used bad language to describe this man. Therefore the reason must be that he wanted to warn the people and not to abuse the man and hence when he met him he was very polite to him. Imam al-Qurtubi commenting on this hadith said: ‘The Hadith contains the permission to backbite the one who publicly shows his Fisq or Fahsh and the like from unjust rulers or those who call to innovation though its allowed to do it in a polite manner as long as long as it does not lead to compromising the Deen of Allah Ta’aala.’ [4] Thus, when we come to narrators of hadith it is clear that unscrupulous hadith narrators are not only harmful to Muslims but to Islam itlsef and therefore their faults must be recorded so no hadith will be accepted from them.
The endeavor to verify the reports gave rise to the science of Rijaal (ie the knowledge and collation of the biography of narrators) and the Science of Jarh (disparagement) and Ta’deel (attestation). Information regarding the probity and precision of narrators were recorded whether the information was disparaging or confirmed the reliability. The honest defamation or Ta’n was considered part of the Deen since it was necessary to protect the Deen. In collecting this material the Rijal critics spared no one to the extent that the son would criticize his father. It is reported that ‘Some people asked ‘Ali b. al-Madeeni, the great Rijal scholar, about his father. He said: Ask somebody else. They repeated the question. He fell silent and then lifted his head and said: This (is part) of the Deen. He (my father) is weak (da’eef).’ It is for this reason that people like the great Tabi’I ‘Ata b. as-Saa`ib and well known Seerah writer Ibn Ishaq were not spared from criticism. Yayha b. Ma’een said: ‘We disparaged people who had already been admitted to Jannah more than a hundred years ago.’ Their prime motivation for doing this was fear of Allah and not the fear of the people. It is reported that Yahya b. Sa’eed al-Qattan was asked: Do you not fear that those people whose hadith you have rejected will dispute against you before Allah? He said: no, that these people should dispute with me is better than the Messenger of Allah (saw) disputing with me by saying: Why did you narrate a hadith which you thought was a lie?’
[Click here to read part 2]
The Stringent Isnad Criteria
Five strict conditions were set to rigorously assess the authenticity of a hadith. The early pioneer in this field, as in so many other fields of Islamic learning, was the great Imam Shafi’I who spelt out a methodology to verify authenticity. Before Shafi’I people were taking munqati and mawquf hadiths until he came along and established the indispensability and supremacy of the muttasil (continuously liked) narration over all other forms of transmission. They were rejecting certain traditions because they seemed to contradict with other narrations. It was Shafi who devised a system of jam’ and tarjeeh to reconcile and outweigh the narrations. The two jurisprudential approaches prevalent in his time was the Ahlul hadith and Ahl ar-Ra’I who were either taking hadith which they should not take due to their weakness or rejecting sound hadith in favor of Qiyas.
Shafi’I reconciled both approaches and set out a systematic methodology which was referred to by all the Mazaahib from that time onwards. So no one should underestimate the significance of following quote from ar-Risaalah which had such a profound influence on how the Ummah referred to the Sunnah in subsequent generations. In the chapter on ‘Proof of the Khabar al-Wahid’ Shafi states:
“Each reporter should be trustworthy in his religion; he should be known to be truthful in his narrating, to understand what he narrates, to know how a different expression can alter the meaning, and report the wording of the hadith verbatim, not only its meaning. This is because if he does not know how a different expression can change the whole meaning, he will not know if he has changed what is lawful into what is prohibited. Hence, if he reports the hadith according to its wording, no change of meaning is found at all. Moreover, he should be a good memoriser if he happens to report from his memory, or a good preserver of his book if he happens to report from it. He shouId agree with the narrations of thehuffaz, if he reports something which they also do. He should not be a mudallis, who narrates from someone he met something he did not hear, nor should he report from the Prophet contrary to what reliable sources have reported from him. The same qualification must be possessed by transmitters preceding him until the transmitter relates back to the Prophet or to him who carries it back to closest to him, for each of them vouches for the tradition as he received it and verifies it for him to whom he passes it. So none of them should lack the qualifications I have just described.’
In other words a Sahih hadith is a report ‘whose chain is continuous by the trustworthy and meticulous transmitters whose report contain no abnormality (shuzuz) or defects (‘illah).’ [5] Thus, the conditions in this definition can be listed as the following:
1. Ittisal as-Sanad (continuity of the chain)
2. ‘adalatur ruwwaah (probity or trustworthiness of narrators)
3. Dab tar-Ruwaah (The precision and accuracy of narrators)
4. The absence of shuzooz and al-‘illah ie the absence of conflict with stronger narrations and hidden defects (‘ilal).
The continuity of the chain of transmission (Ittisal as-Sanad)
Isnad is the backbone of any report. Imam ash-Shafi’I used to say: ‘The one who looks for a hadith without Isnad is like the one who looks for firewood in the night.’ In other words he is groping in the dark and does not know what he is picking up. One of they key methods establishing continuity was the science of dates of birth and death of transmitters. Sufyan ath-Thawri said: ’when they (the fabricators) used lies we used dates’ [6] By identifying when a narrators was born and when died it is possible to ascertain of there was a likelihood that he met the narrator from whom he claims he got the report. Look at the following example given by al-Khateeb in his al-Kifayah fee ‘ilmir riwaayah: Once a man named ‘Umar b. Musa came to Homs. The people gathered round him in the mosque and so he began speak: ‘We were informed by your pious Shaykh such and such hadith. When he kept mentioning him ‘Afeer b. Mi’daan asked him: Who is our pious Shaykh? Give us his name so we can identify him.
Umar b. Musa replied: he is Khalid b. Mi’daan.
‘Afeer asked him: which year did you meet him?
He said: I met him in the year 108 AH.
So he asked: where did you meet him?
He replied: I met him in the battle of Armenia.
So Afeer said: ‘Fear Allah O Shaykh and do not lie. Khalid b. Mi’dan died in the year 104 AH but you claim that you met him after his death by four years. Le me add he did not just fight in Armenia only but also fought the Byzantines.’
The weakest link in the chain is what makes or breaks the credibility of a report. So the Muhadditheen set out the classification of broken chains depending on where they occur and discussion of their value. For example a mu’allaq isnad is where one or more transmitters is missing at the beginning of the chain and mursal is when the Tabi’I omits the name of the sahabi. A mu’dal chain is where two or more transmitters are missing in one more place whilst the munqati’ is any break excluding mu’allaq, mursal and mu’dal. All of these chains are rejected except Mursal about which there is some difference of opinion. Some reject it, others like Abu Haneefah accept it because the omission of the Sahabi who is trustworthy is inconsequential whilst others accept it with certain conditions like Imam ash-Shafi’I. The usefulness of cataloging such chains is that it may be possible to fill the gap afterwards if other chains come to light which establish the continuity.
The Probity of Narrators (‘adaalatur ruwwaah)
After establishing continuity it is necessary to establish the trustworthiness of narrators. Since one can only go by the overt indications it is stipulated that for someone to be ‘adl he must not be known to be a liar or accused of lying or an open fasiq (ie someone who openly transgresses the ahkam) and he must be free from dishonorable behavior (khawaarim al-muroo’ah). Here we can see that it is not enough not to violate the Sharee’ah but the person must not violate the norms of society in order to be accepted by his peers. So, someone who constantly changes his opinion or (madhab) would be deemed as performing an action which may be permitted but would lose credibility i.e. such person would lose his ‘adaalah. Thus we can see the concept of ‘adaalah in narration of hadith is stricter than the concept of ‘adaalah when giving testimony before a Qadi. And finally, another disqualification of ‘adaalah is if the narrator is Majhool al-‘Ayn ie we know his name but do not known his reality.
The way we would know if someone is trustworthy if his probity is attested by other trustworthy people (mu’addileen or if they well known among scholars such as Sufyan b. ‘Uyaynah, Sufyan ath-Thawri or al-Awza’I.
The Precision (dabt) of Narrators (Dab tar-Ruwwaah)
Dabt is the precisian and accuracy of narrators in taking and conveying information. One of the qualities of a transmitter who is dabit is that he must be very alert and cautious lest he records a report from his master in which tadlis has occurred. Yahya b. Qattan heard Shu’ba saying : ‘I used to sit with Qatada (to learn hadiths from him). When he used to say ‘I heard such and such person say…’ I would write it down, but when he would say ‘ such and such person said (without specifying the sama’ from him)I would not write that report down’. [7] Above all he must verify and be meticulous in anything he transmits or receives.
Human beings naturally make mistakes but the one who is dabit should not make too many mistakes. Al-Ramhurmuzi reported form ‘Abd ar-Rahman b. al-Mahdi who said: ‘The Muhaddithoon are three types: The one who is of good memory and meticulous and there is no disagreement about him. The one makes mistakes but most of his haidth are sound and his hadith is not left. And the one who makes mistakes in the majority of his hadiths and this ones hadith is rejected (matrook).’ [8] Thus the narrator must have a good retentive ability and not contradict the narrations of more trustworthy narrators.
Sometimes it can happen that a good narrator of hadith loses his retentive abilities later in life in which it case it is necessary to identify when a hadith was received from him. Ibn Lahee’ah started to muddle up his reports after his books got burned and so the muhaditheen stopped narrating from him father that point. Ahmed b. Hanbal said: ‘Anyone who had heard Ibn Lahee’ah long ago is valid (for report).’ The way in which dabt was ascertained is if his reports generally agree with other trustworthy narrators.
Absence of Shuzooz and ‘Illah
A hadith is considered Shaz when an acceptable transmitter transmits a matn or sanad which contradicts the matn or sanad of more trustworthy narrators. This is different to the munkar which is the narration of untrustworthy narrator which goes against the report of other trustworthy narrators. The benefit of this study is that one can detect mistakes and fabrications while at the same time assess the dabt and ‘adaalah of transmitters.
As for the study if ‘ilal or hidden defects this is one of the most delicate and difficult work of a Hadith critic. Whilst in Usul al-Fiqh it is enough to grasp the intellectual aspects and the key discussions but in the science if ‘Ilal one needs a breadth of knowledge which can encompass and recall a mass of reports and their asaneed in order to compare and detect that which is undetectable to the untrained eye . In this regard the Muhaddith is like a detective looking for clues which will allow him to trace a mistake to its source. Few have mastered this field due to breath of knowledge required to undertake such an investigation. al-Bukhari, Ali al-Madeeni and ad-Daarqutni are a few examples of those who became proficient in this branch of ‘Ilm al-Hadith. Ibn Hatim al-Razi sums it up nicely when he says: ‘The goodness of a Dinar is known when it is measured against another. Thus if it differs in redness and purity, it will be known known that it is fake. The kind of diamond if examined through measuring one another. If it differs in sparkle and firmness, it will be known to be glass. The authenticity of a hadith is known by its coming from reliable narrators and the statement itself must be worthy of being the statement of the Prophethood.’ [9]
The hidden defects can exist in the matn and sanad, and it is the task of the Isnad critic to detect the fault through a scrutiny of multiple narrations and also rectify the defect where possible. For example Yu’la b. ‘Ubayd narrated from ath-Thawri from ‘Amr b. Dinar that the Messenger (saw) said: ‘The seller and the buyer have the right to keep or return goods.’ [10] Here Yu’la has made a mistake because it should be Abdullah b. Dinar and not ‘Amr b. Dinar who should be in the Isnad. How was it possible to catch this? This was because all the students of ath-Thawri reported the hadith from Abdullah b. Dinar and not ‘Amr b. Dinar and therefore Yu’la must have made the mistake.
Grading and classification of Ahadith
The hadith has been further graded [11] as Sahih, Hasan and Da’eef.
Once it has been established that a hahdith has a continuous isnad, made up of reporters of trustworthy preservers from similar authorities, and which is found to be clear from shuzuz and any hidden defects then the Hadiths is classed as Sahih. As for the Hasan Al-Khattabi (d. 388) states: ‘It is the one where its source is known and its reporters are prominent. It is the most regular hadith, and most scholars accept it, and it is used by the fuqaha generally’ [12] Hasan however comes in two varieties:
i. one with an isnad containing a reporter who is mastur (i.e., no prominent person reported from him) but is not totally careless in his reporting, provided that a similar text is reported through another isnad as well;
ii. one with an isnad containing a reporter who is known to be truthful and reliable, but is a degree less in his preservation of hadith in comparison to the reporters of sahih ahadith.
In both categories however the hadith should be free of any conflict with more reliable narrations (shuzuz).
As for the Da’eef it is the narration which lacks the attributes of Sahih and Hasan. Whilst the last two are sound and relied upon as evidence Da’eef on the other hand cannot be adduced as proof.
After this the hadith were divided according to the manner in which it was transmitted to us. Although people disagreed about the details a basic distinction which everyone one accepts is that hadiths are either Ahad or Mutawatir.
Click here to read part 4
Techniques in Averting Errors
A number of measure have been adopted to insure that errors are kept to a minimum. For example the use of textual comparisons. Cross-comparisons were made between the hadiths of different students of a given scholar or the statements of a scholar made at different times. Written versions were also compared with the oral record. Dabt, for example, was measured by using this procedure. In fact, this was the earliest method of checking the accuracy and truthfulness of traditionalists. There are reports which indicate that even Companions such as Abu Bakr, Umar b. al-Khattab and ‘A’isha cross examined people purporting to know traditions from the Prophet. This practice was continued by the Successors and developed to greater degrees of sophistication. The Successor, Ayyub al-Shakhtiani (d.131) used to say :’If you wish to know the mistakes of your teacher, then you ought to sit with others as well’.
This was the key technique in detecting interpolations (mudraj) in the text. For example, al-Khatib relates via Abu Qattan and Shababa — Shu’ba — Muhammad b. Ziyad — Abu Huraira — The Prophet, who said,
“Perform the ablution fully; woe to the heels from the Fire!”
Al-Khatib then remarks,
“The statement, ‘Perform the ablution fully’ is made by Abu Huraira, while the statement afterwards, ‘Woe to the heels from the Fire!’, is that of the Prophet. The distinction between the two is understood from the narration of al-Bukhari, who transmits the same hadith and quotes Abu Huraira as saying, “Complete the ablution, for Abul Qasim said, ‘Woe to the heels from the Fire!’.”
They used these techniques to detect alterations to the expression or meaning of a hadith. For example: The expression salla ila can mean to send blessings upon or to pray before something. Look at the misunderstanding of Abu Musa al-‘Anazi who said: we are a noble people for we are from ‘Anazah. The Messenger of Allah (saw) sent blessings meaning the hadith which says: anna an-nabi (saw) sallah ila ‘Anazah. He thought the prophet was seding blessings on his tribe when in fact what the statement meant is that the Prophet prayed before a ‘Anazah which is the name of spear placed in front of the Musalli when he prays.
Detection of forgery and deception
Techniques of detection came under two categories:
a) Techniques relating to the sanad.
b) Techniques relating to the matn or diraayah
In terms of the sanad there are times when a fabricator would confess, in such cases their names were recorded and narrations bearing that persons name were rejected. If a narrator did not meet the scholar from which he is narrating the tradition , or if he was born after the death of that scholars, or had not gone to the area or region from which claims he claims he heard the hadith, that would be an indication of fabrication. Also narrators lives were inspected if they had any vested interest in quoting a certain narration. Many hadiths were rejected using this technique. For example the hadith ‘The Hareesah (a certain dish) strengthens the back.’ It tuned out that its fabricator Muhammad b. Hajjaj an-Nakha’I used to sell Hareesah! [13]
As for the techniques relating to matn or what’s known as the study of Diraayah they include the following: The style and linguistic qualities of the texts were studied to see if they matched with the style of the Prophet which they had become accustomed to from well established authentic hadiths. Text containing corruptions and wild exaggerations in meaning were rejected or statements which were rationally unacceptable. [14] E.g. aubergines are the cure for all diseases. Texts which contradicted the Qur’an were also rejected. Also discarded were texts which contradicted well established facts of history during the time of the Prophet or when a narration agreed with sectarian views of extremely partisan narrators.
Perhaps one of the best examples of textual analysis is the one quoted by Ibn Qayyim in his Naqd al-Manqool. He quotes a report which says that an agreement was made with the people of khaybar exempted them from the payment of Jizyah.’ This report was declared a fabrication due to the following indications in the Matn:
i. Text mentiones Sa’d b. Mu’az but Sa’d had died before then in the battle of Khandaq.
ii. It mentions that Mu’awiyyah b. Abi Sufyan wrote the letter but Mu’awiyyah had not embraced Islam until the conquest of Makkah which is much later than this incident.
iii. The hadith mentioned Jizyah but that was not revealed until after Tabuk.
iv. It mentions that certain types of taxes were levied but these did not exist at the time.
v. The treaty us unspecified by time, how can this be when he did not grant them unspecified security?
vi. How could this happen without the knowledge of this who conveyed the Sunnah such as the Sahabah and Tabi’een but it so happens that the Jews know about it?
vii. The Jews of Khaybar fought Messenger and his companions, what did they deserve to be granted such an exemption from the obligation of Jizya, when other tribes just as bad were not exempted?
viii. Had the Prophet exempted them from the Jizya he would not have stipulated that they be expelled whenever he (saw) willed. This does not fit with the ruling that the Ahl al-Zimmah cannot be expelled as long as they abide by the rules of Islam.
ix. If the Prophet had exempted them when did none of the Sahabah exempt them? [15]
Science of Conflicting Hadith (Mukhtalaful Hadith):
It is inevitable that some reports will seem contradictory since one hadith may be general while the other is specific, or one is misquote while the other is accurate or if one has abrogated the other. Therefore, it was necessary to establish a methodology by which such seeming contradictions can be reconciled. It was for this reason that the science of Mukhtalaf al-Hadith was developed.
When presented with two sets of contradictory hadith one of three options are possible. Either one can resort to Jam’ or reconciliation of the hadith by considering whole host of issues such as textual indication (madlool al-Lafz) or if this is not possible then outweigh (tarjeeh) one report over the other if the chronology is not known and finally accept abrogation if the chronology known.
Imam al-Asnawi said: ‘When two evidences contradict then one is outweighed over the other if it is not possible to act upon both of them. If it is possible to act upon them even if it is from one aspect and not in another then we should not proceed to Tarjeeh (outweighing). This is because acting upon both evidences is better than neglecting one text completely since in origin a daleel should be acted upon and not neglected.’ [16]
Thus, the means of removing the contradiction are three:
a) Jam’ (reconciliation)
b) Tarjeeh (outweighing if the chronology is not known)
c) Naskh, abrogation if chronology is known.
d) If none of the above methods are possible then revert back to the original rule and assume the contradictory texts are non-existent.
The process of Jam’ is where you try to reconcile two contradictory texts due to certain linguistic and circumstantial considerations. For example the textual indications (madlul al-Lafz) can assist in the reconciliation between two texts. In one hadith it says: ‘Water is pure so nothing can make it impure.’ [17] While another says: ‘If the water is enough to fill two pots (qullatayn), it carries no impurity.’ [18] The first text is ‘Aam for all amounts of water but the mafhum of the second text indicates that water can become impure if its nature is changed. This is a specification (takhsees) of the first text by the mafhum of the second.
As for Tarjeeh this can happen in a number of ways. One way is if one of the conflicting hadith accords with another authentic hadith. For example one hadith says: ’There is no Nikah without a wali.’ [19] This hadith stipulates the presence of a wali but it seems to contradicts with another hadith which indicates the wali is not stipulated. That hadith is as follows: ‘The matron has greater right than her guardians and the virgin her permission is sought. Her permission is her silence’ [20] But the first hadith stipulating the presence of wali agrees with another sound narration which says: ‘Any woman who gets married without the permission of her guardian (Wali), her marriage will be void, her marriage will be void, her marriage will be void’ [21] Therefore, the Tarjeeh will be that the hadith which says there is no nikah without wali is outweighed and accepted because it is supported by another authentic narration.
As for abrogation this happens when Jam’ is not possible but abrogation is possible because the chronology is known. For example one hadith says: ‘The one who cups blood and is cupped has broken his fast.’ But another ahdith says: ‘That the Prophet (saw) was cupped while he was fasting.’ If we scrutinize the circumstances of these hadiths we find that first hadith took place in year eighth of the Hijrah during Fath while the second hadith is in the Farwell speech (Hijjatul Widaa’) in the year 10 after Hijrah. Thus, ash-Shafi’I took the view that the second hadith has abrogated the first thereby allowing the cupping of blood while fasting in Ramadan.
Conclusion
The Muslims rose to the challenge when the source of their way of life was being threatened by destructive activities of hadith fabricators. They were able to amass a data base of thousands of narrators, set out rigorous criteria to asses authenticity, classify and adopt a grading system for chains narrators, devise techniques to detect and avert mistakes and fabrications and adopt a methodology to reconcile the differences within certain texts. The result was the effective preservation of the ideology and its legislative capacity.
If we compare the system of Isnad to the modern system of historical analysis we will find the former much more sophisticated and successful in establishing the veracity of historical incidents and events. What the Muslims called a Da’eef hadith is perhaps stronger in historicity, in some of its forms, than modern sources such history textbooks, numismatics or historical criticism of literary texts. This is because Da’eef does not mean fabrication but that it did not satisfy our stringent criteria. So when Nizam al-Islam mentions that riwaayah or narration is the strongest and most reliable source of history, not archeological findings, it assumes knowledge of the above discussion of the Isnad system.
Thus, the Muslims protected their ideology, insured the legislative capacity and preserved their Islamic civilization. Muslim historiography in this regard is a testament to how the Ummah can solve her problems, progress and revive if she adopts the Islamic ‘Aqeedah as the basis for her thoughts, society and state.
Kamal Abu Zahra
References
[1] The Islamic state p.199
[2] Sahih Zarkashi’s al-Ijaabah li-iraad maa istadrakathu ‘aisha ‘alas Sahabah p.76
[3] Bukhari, Kitab al-Adab, hadith: 80
[4] See Fathul Bari and section on Ibn Hajars discussion of Aisha’s hadith.
[5] Taqreeb see page 37
[6] See al-Kifayah fee ‘ilm ar-Riwaayah pp119
[7] See Abu Bakr Ahmed b. ‘Ali b. Thabit ( al-Khatib al-Baghdad ), Kitab al-Kifaya fi ‘ilm ar-Riwaya ( al-Maktaba al-’ilmiyya bi al-Madina al-Munawwara, n.d.) see p.164.
[8] al-Muhaddith al-Fasil p.406
[9] see Abn Abu Hatim al-Razi, al-Jarh wat-ta’deel
[10] an-Nukhba an-nabhaniyyahp. 123. the hadith is in bukhari in kitab al-buyu’.
[11] ‘ghareeb in matn for some is like shaz (contradiction of thiqaat) but for others its just irregular but not a cause for ta’n……but gharaabah in sanad it is saheeh but point is it is low in value, hence Imam Malik said: ‘the worst knowledge is the ghareeb and the best knowledge is the zaahir narrated by the people.’
[12] Ma’aalim as-sunan, vol 1, p.11.
[13] See as-Siba’I, as-Sunnah wa makaanatuhu fit tashree’ al-Islami
[14] Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi says: ‘All the statements come under three categories. Of them one is to be known to be erroneous. The cause of this knowledge is that ‘Aql refused to accept it.’ [Kifayah p. 17]
[15] Naqd al-Manqool, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, p.90-93
[16] Nihayat as-suwal vol 3 p.214.’
[17] Abu dawud.
[18] An-Nasa`i
[19] Abu Dawud
[20] Sahih Muslim
[21] al-Hakim
Introduction
The Islamic ideology derives from the Qur’an and Sunnah. Legislation in Islam also derived from these two sources. Therefore if any one of these sources is lost or distorted then the risk is to the ideology as a whole. In this respect the study of Isnad is not a peripheral discipline in Islam but fundamental to the preservation of the ideology itself. Without Isnad the Sunnah as a source of ahkam would cease to exist. Without Isnad we would lose the ability to elaborate, specify and restrict the ambivalent, general and absolute import of the Quranic text since the role of the Sunnah is to clarify the Qur’an. Without Isnad, extraction of Sharee’ah rules for new realities from the Sunnah would cease to exist. Without Isnad foreign elements could have been incorporated within the ideology due to their false attribution to the Prophet (saw). Thus, Isnad is crucial for the purity, clarity and crystallization of the Islamic ideology and its ability to solve new problems from its legislative source. That is why ‘Abdullah b. Mubarak the teacher of Imam al-Bukhari (Rahmatullahi ‘alayhim) did not exaggerate when he said:
"The isnad is part of the Deen: had it not been for the isnad, whoever wished to would have said whatever he liked."
It is also precisely for this reason that the Orientalists, have sought to create doubt in the efficacy of the Isnad. The wholesale rejection of hadith as a historical source was first argued by an Orientalist named Ignaz Goldziher in volume 2 of his book: Muslim Studiess. Goldziger was then followed by Joseph Schact who developed his ideas and tried to present a substantial body of proof to this effect in his work: ‘The origins of Muhammadan jurisprudenc’ which was published in 1950. And more recently Gautier Juynboll in his, Muslim Tradition. Studies in chronology, provenance and authorship of early hadith’ has developed further techniques to prove the false nature of the hadith literature. The general thrust of orientalism since Goldziher has tended to impute doubt, in various degrees, on the corpus of hadith literature. For them the elaborate isnad which the Muslims adduce as proof of authenticity have either been doctored or embellished such that the hadith literature is more a reflection of the time in which they were fabricated, ie the political and sectarian milieu of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, than the time they are supposed to go back to which is the time of the Prophet and his noble companions. This is one of the more serious and fundamental attacks by Orientalists on the Islamic ideology. By throwing doubt on these sources it would be possible to demolish the whole edifice which rests upon them. It was in this vein that attempts were made to discredit the historicity of the hadith literature.
In addition we see the influence of this thought on modernism and modernist thinking where Sunnah as a source of legislation is markedly absent in the political field. Hence we see amongst some Muslims an attitude which considers the Sunnah of lesser importance than the Qur’an simply because the hadith requires further study and scrutiny as compared to the Qur’an. This has led to people either disregarding or neglecting ahkam simply because it is not found explicitly in the Qur’an. Hadiths discussing the unity of the Muslims, the obligation to appoint a Khaleefah, or the ruling that a woman cannot be ruler to name but a few are brushed aside or not given their due weight because they are ‘hadith’ and not an ayah of the Qur’an.
Dr Asghar Ali Engineer in his book The Islamic State says: ‘There is no fixed concept of an Islamic state – much less a divinely ordained one to be treated immutable. The Koran, as pointed out, elucidates a concept of society, not of a state. The theory of Islamic state, as we have seen in the preceding chapters, changed and conformed more to the concrete situations than to any a priori concept.’[1] The hadiths discussing the Khilafah were fabricated by the rulers to justify their rule. He says: ‘In the metamorphosed state set-up there was nothing more Islamic than the fact that the ruler professed Islam and enforced certain provisions of the Sharee’ah in personal and criminal matters. It was the result of such circumstances that a number of traditions were coined justifying any regime which did as little as enforcing the Islamic way of prayer.’ He then proceeds to quote the rigorously authenticated hadith in Sahih Muslim as example of such fabrication. The text of that hadith is: ‘In the near future there will be Amirs and you will like their good deeds and dislike their bad deeds. One who sees through their bad deeds (and tries to prevent their repetition by his hand or through his speech), is absolved from blame, but one who hates their bad deeds (in the heart of his heart, being unable to prevent their recurrence by his hand or his tongue), is (also) safe (so far as God”s wrath is concerned). But one who approves of their bad deeds and imitates them is spiritually ruined. People asked (the Prophet): Shouldn’t we fight against them? He replied: No, as long as they say their prayers.’ This is exactly the view held by Goldziher who claimed that the political hadith literature was a product of the political and sectarian background of the Umayyad caliphate. Recently Dr Engineer gave a presentation in which he sought to prove gender equality and his approach was solely his own personal interpretation of the Qur’an without any recourse to the Hadith. His reason for this is that hadith was recorded a hundred years after the event, they are contradictory or contradict his own reading of the Qur’an and therefore not a reliable source for Tafseer of the Qur’an.
This attitude is dangerous as it is tantamount to disregarding the revelation of Allah (swt) and the reason for this reverts back to the pragmatic view of the Sharee’ah and a sense that Hadith is somehow of lesser worth due to the difficulties posed in establishing its authenticity.
Therefore the aim of this article is to establish the firm conviction in Sunnah as a source of legislation by demonstrating the sophistication and success of the hadith methodology in preserving the Sunnah. However, the way I will be discussing this topic is not to present it as discipline of Musatalah al-Hadith as has been traditionally done but to take relevant aspects of the discipline to give us an outline and conception of the methodology and system itself. As for a detailed refutation of Orientalist arguments and proofs, this will not be possible here due to lack of time but it is thoroughly dealt with in my forthcoming work: ‘The Role of Isnad in the Preservation of the Islamic Civilization’
Historical background and the Birth of Isnad
But before we discuss the key aspects of the hadith methodology I wish to recount the historical background of Isnad so that we can appreciate the context in which the Isnad was born and the problems and challenges Muslims faced in protecting the ideology from the pernicious activities of fabricators.
If we start with the time of the Messenger (saw) we find that questions of authenticity was not an issue since the Prophet was amongst them and the Sahabah were able to correct each other if any mistakes were made in narration. So for example ‘Umar once narrated that the Messenger (saw) said: ‘The deceased is punished due to the weeping of his family’ but ‘Aisha corrected him by saying: ‘The Prophet (saw) said this regarding a Jewess that she was punished whilst her family were crying for her’ meaning that she was punished due to dying upon kufr while the family wept and not because the family was weeping for her.[2] At this time Isnad was at its rudimentary stage because of the proximity to the Prophet (saw) but this did not stop the Sahabah from checking strange attributions or corroborating reports when in doubt.
The earliest record of fabrication of hadith started after the first civil war between Ali and Mu’awiya from 35 A.H following the murder of Uthman. According to Ibn Sirin who died in the year 110 AH: ‘They did not ask about the Isnad but when civil war (fitna) arose they said: Name to us your men; those who belong to Ahl al-Sunnah, their traditions were accepted and those who were innovators their traditions were neglected.’ After this time the fabrications increased with varying motivations. Initially the false attributions reflected political differences. According to Ibn Abi al-Hadid: ‘Lies were introduced in Hadith on merits originally by Shi’a. They in the beginning fabricated many hadith in favor of their man motivated by enmity towards their opponents. When Bakriyya (ie supporters of Abu Bakr) found out what the Shi’a had done they fabricated on their part hadith in favour of their man.’
Disagreements in ‘Aqaa`id also led the unscrupulous to fabricate hadith in support of their sectarian positions. So there are one set of narrations which say that the Prophet (saw) said that Imaan increases and decrease wile another set say Iman does not increase or decrease and all of them are fabricated.
Another faction which fabricated hadith were the Zindeeqs ie people who outwardly manifested Islam but hated it and wanted to destroy it being giving an ridiculous and irrational impression of Islam through their fabrications.
Some fabricated hadith to support the founder of their own school like the report which says: ‘There will be among my Ummah a man named Abu Haneefah who will be the Suraj (light) of my Ummah.’ Or the the fabrication referring to ash-shafi’I which says: ‘There will be among my Ummah a man named Muhammad b. Idrees who will be more harmful to my Ummah than Iblees.’ Other categories of people who fabricated hadith were well intentioned pious people who wanted encourage Ta’aat or the story tellers (Qussas) who wanted to entertain the people with their wild and amazing stories.
The Biographical (rijal) Literature
The first step in verifying a report is to know the reality of the person reporting a piece of news. That is why Allah (swt) says:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنْ جَاءَكُمْ فَاسِقٌ بِنَبَإٍ فَتَبَيَّنُوا أَنْ تُصِيبُوا قَوْمًا بِجَهَالَةٍ فَتُصْبِحُوا عَلَى مَا فَعَلْتُمْ نَادِمِينَ
‘O you who believe! If a Fasiq comes to you with a news, verify it, lest you harm people in ignorance, and afterwards you become regretful to what you have done.’ [49:6]
Here the ‘illah for verifying or scrutinizing a report is the potential harm that will be caused by accepting a false report. It is on the basis of this ayah that the Muhadditheen began to seek out information about narrators in order to verify their narration. But what about recording and publicizing the defects of such narrators, what is the Shar’I justification for doing this? Al-Bukhari reported on the authority of ‘Aisha that: ‘A man asked permission to enter upon Allah’s Apostle. The Prophet said, “Admit him. What an evil brother of his people or a son of his people.” But when the man entered, the Prophet spoke to him in a very polite manner. (And when that person left) I said, “O Allah’s Apostle! You had said what you had said, yet you spoke to him in a very polite manner?” The Prophet said, “O ‘Aisha! The worst people are those whom the people desert or leave in order to save themselves from their dirty language or from their transgression.’ [3] This hadith teaches us that in warning the Muslims from a harm it is allowed to backbite because the man Rasulullah was warning about is one man named ‘Uyaynah b. Hisn who outwardly showed that he was a Muslim thought in reality he was not a Muslim. Rasulullah wanted to warn the people about this man so he said what an evil man he is. This is indicated by the Prophet’s answer to A’isha when she asked him why he used bad language, he replied that he one who used bad language is the worst of people yet he (saw) used bad language to describe this man. Therefore the reason must be that he wanted to warn the people and not to abuse the man and hence when he met him he was very polite to him. Imam al-Qurtubi commenting on this hadith said: ‘The Hadith contains the permission to backbite the one who publicly shows his Fisq or Fahsh and the like from unjust rulers or those who call to innovation though its allowed to do it in a polite manner as long as long as it does not lead to compromising the Deen of Allah Ta’aala.’ [4] Thus, when we come to narrators of hadith it is clear that unscrupulous hadith narrators are not only harmful to Muslims but to Islam itlsef and therefore their faults must be recorded so no hadith will be accepted from them.
The endeavor to verify the reports gave rise to the science of Rijaal (ie the knowledge and collation of the biography of narrators) and the Science of Jarh (disparagement) and Ta’deel (attestation). Information regarding the probity and precision of narrators were recorded whether the information was disparaging or confirmed the reliability. The honest defamation or Ta’n was considered part of the Deen since it was necessary to protect the Deen. In collecting this material the Rijal critics spared no one to the extent that the son would criticize his father. It is reported that ‘Some people asked ‘Ali b. al-Madeeni, the great Rijal scholar, about his father. He said: Ask somebody else. They repeated the question. He fell silent and then lifted his head and said: This (is part) of the Deen. He (my father) is weak (da’eef).’ It is for this reason that people like the great Tabi’I ‘Ata b. as-Saa`ib and well known Seerah writer Ibn Ishaq were not spared from criticism. Yayha b. Ma’een said: ‘We disparaged people who had already been admitted to Jannah more than a hundred years ago.’ Their prime motivation for doing this was fear of Allah and not the fear of the people. It is reported that Yahya b. Sa’eed al-Qattan was asked: Do you not fear that those people whose hadith you have rejected will dispute against you before Allah? He said: no, that these people should dispute with me is better than the Messenger of Allah (saw) disputing with me by saying: Why did you narrate a hadith which you thought was a lie?’
[Click here to read part 2]
The Stringent Isnad Criteria
Five strict conditions were set to rigorously assess the authenticity of a hadith. The early pioneer in this field, as in so many other fields of Islamic learning, was the great Imam Shafi’I who spelt out a methodology to verify authenticity. Before Shafi’I people were taking munqati and mawquf hadiths until he came along and established the indispensability and supremacy of the muttasil (continuously liked) narration over all other forms of transmission. They were rejecting certain traditions because they seemed to contradict with other narrations. It was Shafi who devised a system of jam’ and tarjeeh to reconcile and outweigh the narrations. The two jurisprudential approaches prevalent in his time was the Ahlul hadith and Ahl ar-Ra’I who were either taking hadith which they should not take due to their weakness or rejecting sound hadith in favor of Qiyas.
Shafi’I reconciled both approaches and set out a systematic methodology which was referred to by all the Mazaahib from that time onwards. So no one should underestimate the significance of following quote from ar-Risaalah which had such a profound influence on how the Ummah referred to the Sunnah in subsequent generations. In the chapter on ‘Proof of the Khabar al-Wahid’ Shafi states:
“Each reporter should be trustworthy in his religion; he should be known to be truthful in his narrating, to understand what he narrates, to know how a different expression can alter the meaning, and report the wording of the hadith verbatim, not only its meaning. This is because if he does not know how a different expression can change the whole meaning, he will not know if he has changed what is lawful into what is prohibited. Hence, if he reports the hadith according to its wording, no change of meaning is found at all. Moreover, he should be a good memoriser if he happens to report from his memory, or a good preserver of his book if he happens to report from it. He shouId agree with the narrations of thehuffaz, if he reports something which they also do. He should not be a mudallis, who narrates from someone he met something he did not hear, nor should he report from the Prophet contrary to what reliable sources have reported from him. The same qualification must be possessed by transmitters preceding him until the transmitter relates back to the Prophet or to him who carries it back to closest to him, for each of them vouches for the tradition as he received it and verifies it for him to whom he passes it. So none of them should lack the qualifications I have just described.’
In other words a Sahih hadith is a report ‘whose chain is continuous by the trustworthy and meticulous transmitters whose report contain no abnormality (shuzuz) or defects (‘illah).’ [5] Thus, the conditions in this definition can be listed as the following:
1. Ittisal as-Sanad (continuity of the chain)
2. ‘adalatur ruwwaah (probity or trustworthiness of narrators)
3. Dab tar-Ruwaah (The precision and accuracy of narrators)
4. The absence of shuzooz and al-‘illah ie the absence of conflict with stronger narrations and hidden defects (‘ilal).
The continuity of the chain of transmission (Ittisal as-Sanad)
Isnad is the backbone of any report. Imam ash-Shafi’I used to say: ‘The one who looks for a hadith without Isnad is like the one who looks for firewood in the night.’ In other words he is groping in the dark and does not know what he is picking up. One of they key methods establishing continuity was the science of dates of birth and death of transmitters. Sufyan ath-Thawri said: ’when they (the fabricators) used lies we used dates’ [6] By identifying when a narrators was born and when died it is possible to ascertain of there was a likelihood that he met the narrator from whom he claims he got the report. Look at the following example given by al-Khateeb in his al-Kifayah fee ‘ilmir riwaayah: Once a man named ‘Umar b. Musa came to Homs. The people gathered round him in the mosque and so he began speak: ‘We were informed by your pious Shaykh such and such hadith. When he kept mentioning him ‘Afeer b. Mi’daan asked him: Who is our pious Shaykh? Give us his name so we can identify him.
Umar b. Musa replied: he is Khalid b. Mi’daan.
‘Afeer asked him: which year did you meet him?
He said: I met him in the year 108 AH.
So he asked: where did you meet him?
He replied: I met him in the battle of Armenia.
So Afeer said: ‘Fear Allah O Shaykh and do not lie. Khalid b. Mi’dan died in the year 104 AH but you claim that you met him after his death by four years. Le me add he did not just fight in Armenia only but also fought the Byzantines.’
The weakest link in the chain is what makes or breaks the credibility of a report. So the Muhadditheen set out the classification of broken chains depending on where they occur and discussion of their value. For example a mu’allaq isnad is where one or more transmitters is missing at the beginning of the chain and mursal is when the Tabi’I omits the name of the sahabi. A mu’dal chain is where two or more transmitters are missing in one more place whilst the munqati’ is any break excluding mu’allaq, mursal and mu’dal. All of these chains are rejected except Mursal about which there is some difference of opinion. Some reject it, others like Abu Haneefah accept it because the omission of the Sahabi who is trustworthy is inconsequential whilst others accept it with certain conditions like Imam ash-Shafi’I. The usefulness of cataloging such chains is that it may be possible to fill the gap afterwards if other chains come to light which establish the continuity.
The Probity of Narrators (‘adaalatur ruwwaah)
After establishing continuity it is necessary to establish the trustworthiness of narrators. Since one can only go by the overt indications it is stipulated that for someone to be ‘adl he must not be known to be a liar or accused of lying or an open fasiq (ie someone who openly transgresses the ahkam) and he must be free from dishonorable behavior (khawaarim al-muroo’ah). Here we can see that it is not enough not to violate the Sharee’ah but the person must not violate the norms of society in order to be accepted by his peers. So, someone who constantly changes his opinion or (madhab) would be deemed as performing an action which may be permitted but would lose credibility i.e. such person would lose his ‘adaalah. Thus we can see the concept of ‘adaalah in narration of hadith is stricter than the concept of ‘adaalah when giving testimony before a Qadi. And finally, another disqualification of ‘adaalah is if the narrator is Majhool al-‘Ayn ie we know his name but do not known his reality.
The way we would know if someone is trustworthy if his probity is attested by other trustworthy people (mu’addileen or if they well known among scholars such as Sufyan b. ‘Uyaynah, Sufyan ath-Thawri or al-Awza’I.
The Precision (dabt) of Narrators (Dab tar-Ruwwaah)
Dabt is the precisian and accuracy of narrators in taking and conveying information. One of the qualities of a transmitter who is dabit is that he must be very alert and cautious lest he records a report from his master in which tadlis has occurred. Yahya b. Qattan heard Shu’ba saying : ‘I used to sit with Qatada (to learn hadiths from him). When he used to say ‘I heard such and such person say…’ I would write it down, but when he would say ‘ such and such person said (without specifying the sama’ from him)I would not write that report down’. [7] Above all he must verify and be meticulous in anything he transmits or receives.
Human beings naturally make mistakes but the one who is dabit should not make too many mistakes. Al-Ramhurmuzi reported form ‘Abd ar-Rahman b. al-Mahdi who said: ‘The Muhaddithoon are three types: The one who is of good memory and meticulous and there is no disagreement about him. The one makes mistakes but most of his haidth are sound and his hadith is not left. And the one who makes mistakes in the majority of his hadiths and this ones hadith is rejected (matrook).’ [8] Thus the narrator must have a good retentive ability and not contradict the narrations of more trustworthy narrators.
Sometimes it can happen that a good narrator of hadith loses his retentive abilities later in life in which it case it is necessary to identify when a hadith was received from him. Ibn Lahee’ah started to muddle up his reports after his books got burned and so the muhaditheen stopped narrating from him father that point. Ahmed b. Hanbal said: ‘Anyone who had heard Ibn Lahee’ah long ago is valid (for report).’ The way in which dabt was ascertained is if his reports generally agree with other trustworthy narrators.
Absence of Shuzooz and ‘Illah
A hadith is considered Shaz when an acceptable transmitter transmits a matn or sanad which contradicts the matn or sanad of more trustworthy narrators. This is different to the munkar which is the narration of untrustworthy narrator which goes against the report of other trustworthy narrators. The benefit of this study is that one can detect mistakes and fabrications while at the same time assess the dabt and ‘adaalah of transmitters.
As for the study if ‘ilal or hidden defects this is one of the most delicate and difficult work of a Hadith critic. Whilst in Usul al-Fiqh it is enough to grasp the intellectual aspects and the key discussions but in the science if ‘Ilal one needs a breadth of knowledge which can encompass and recall a mass of reports and their asaneed in order to compare and detect that which is undetectable to the untrained eye . In this regard the Muhaddith is like a detective looking for clues which will allow him to trace a mistake to its source. Few have mastered this field due to breath of knowledge required to undertake such an investigation. al-Bukhari, Ali al-Madeeni and ad-Daarqutni are a few examples of those who became proficient in this branch of ‘Ilm al-Hadith. Ibn Hatim al-Razi sums it up nicely when he says: ‘The goodness of a Dinar is known when it is measured against another. Thus if it differs in redness and purity, it will be known known that it is fake. The kind of diamond if examined through measuring one another. If it differs in sparkle and firmness, it will be known to be glass. The authenticity of a hadith is known by its coming from reliable narrators and the statement itself must be worthy of being the statement of the Prophethood.’ [9]
The hidden defects can exist in the matn and sanad, and it is the task of the Isnad critic to detect the fault through a scrutiny of multiple narrations and also rectify the defect where possible. For example Yu’la b. ‘Ubayd narrated from ath-Thawri from ‘Amr b. Dinar that the Messenger (saw) said: ‘The seller and the buyer have the right to keep or return goods.’ [10] Here Yu’la has made a mistake because it should be Abdullah b. Dinar and not ‘Amr b. Dinar who should be in the Isnad. How was it possible to catch this? This was because all the students of ath-Thawri reported the hadith from Abdullah b. Dinar and not ‘Amr b. Dinar and therefore Yu’la must have made the mistake.
Grading and classification of Ahadith
The hadith has been further graded [11] as Sahih, Hasan and Da’eef.
Once it has been established that a hahdith has a continuous isnad, made up of reporters of trustworthy preservers from similar authorities, and which is found to be clear from shuzuz and any hidden defects then the Hadiths is classed as Sahih. As for the Hasan Al-Khattabi (d. 388) states: ‘It is the one where its source is known and its reporters are prominent. It is the most regular hadith, and most scholars accept it, and it is used by the fuqaha generally’ [12] Hasan however comes in two varieties:
i. one with an isnad containing a reporter who is mastur (i.e., no prominent person reported from him) but is not totally careless in his reporting, provided that a similar text is reported through another isnad as well;
ii. one with an isnad containing a reporter who is known to be truthful and reliable, but is a degree less in his preservation of hadith in comparison to the reporters of sahih ahadith.
In both categories however the hadith should be free of any conflict with more reliable narrations (shuzuz).
As for the Da’eef it is the narration which lacks the attributes of Sahih and Hasan. Whilst the last two are sound and relied upon as evidence Da’eef on the other hand cannot be adduced as proof.
After this the hadith were divided according to the manner in which it was transmitted to us. Although people disagreed about the details a basic distinction which everyone one accepts is that hadiths are either Ahad or Mutawatir.
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Techniques in Averting Errors
A number of measure have been adopted to insure that errors are kept to a minimum. For example the use of textual comparisons. Cross-comparisons were made between the hadiths of different students of a given scholar or the statements of a scholar made at different times. Written versions were also compared with the oral record. Dabt, for example, was measured by using this procedure. In fact, this was the earliest method of checking the accuracy and truthfulness of traditionalists. There are reports which indicate that even Companions such as Abu Bakr, Umar b. al-Khattab and ‘A’isha cross examined people purporting to know traditions from the Prophet. This practice was continued by the Successors and developed to greater degrees of sophistication. The Successor, Ayyub al-Shakhtiani (d.131) used to say :’If you wish to know the mistakes of your teacher, then you ought to sit with others as well’.
This was the key technique in detecting interpolations (mudraj) in the text. For example, al-Khatib relates via Abu Qattan and Shababa — Shu’ba — Muhammad b. Ziyad — Abu Huraira — The Prophet, who said,
“Perform the ablution fully; woe to the heels from the Fire!”
Al-Khatib then remarks,
“The statement, ‘Perform the ablution fully’ is made by Abu Huraira, while the statement afterwards, ‘Woe to the heels from the Fire!’, is that of the Prophet. The distinction between the two is understood from the narration of al-Bukhari, who transmits the same hadith and quotes Abu Huraira as saying, “Complete the ablution, for Abul Qasim said, ‘Woe to the heels from the Fire!’.”
They used these techniques to detect alterations to the expression or meaning of a hadith. For example: The expression salla ila can mean to send blessings upon or to pray before something. Look at the misunderstanding of Abu Musa al-‘Anazi who said: we are a noble people for we are from ‘Anazah. The Messenger of Allah (saw) sent blessings meaning the hadith which says: anna an-nabi (saw) sallah ila ‘Anazah. He thought the prophet was seding blessings on his tribe when in fact what the statement meant is that the Prophet prayed before a ‘Anazah which is the name of spear placed in front of the Musalli when he prays.
Detection of forgery and deception
Techniques of detection came under two categories:
a) Techniques relating to the sanad.
b) Techniques relating to the matn or diraayah
In terms of the sanad there are times when a fabricator would confess, in such cases their names were recorded and narrations bearing that persons name were rejected. If a narrator did not meet the scholar from which he is narrating the tradition , or if he was born after the death of that scholars, or had not gone to the area or region from which claims he claims he heard the hadith, that would be an indication of fabrication. Also narrators lives were inspected if they had any vested interest in quoting a certain narration. Many hadiths were rejected using this technique. For example the hadith ‘The Hareesah (a certain dish) strengthens the back.’ It tuned out that its fabricator Muhammad b. Hajjaj an-Nakha’I used to sell Hareesah! [13]
As for the techniques relating to matn or what’s known as the study of Diraayah they include the following: The style and linguistic qualities of the texts were studied to see if they matched with the style of the Prophet which they had become accustomed to from well established authentic hadiths. Text containing corruptions and wild exaggerations in meaning were rejected or statements which were rationally unacceptable. [14] E.g. aubergines are the cure for all diseases. Texts which contradicted the Qur’an were also rejected. Also discarded were texts which contradicted well established facts of history during the time of the Prophet or when a narration agreed with sectarian views of extremely partisan narrators.
Perhaps one of the best examples of textual analysis is the one quoted by Ibn Qayyim in his Naqd al-Manqool. He quotes a report which says that an agreement was made with the people of khaybar exempted them from the payment of Jizyah.’ This report was declared a fabrication due to the following indications in the Matn:
i. Text mentiones Sa’d b. Mu’az but Sa’d had died before then in the battle of Khandaq.
ii. It mentions that Mu’awiyyah b. Abi Sufyan wrote the letter but Mu’awiyyah had not embraced Islam until the conquest of Makkah which is much later than this incident.
iii. The hadith mentioned Jizyah but that was not revealed until after Tabuk.
iv. It mentions that certain types of taxes were levied but these did not exist at the time.
v. The treaty us unspecified by time, how can this be when he did not grant them unspecified security?
vi. How could this happen without the knowledge of this who conveyed the Sunnah such as the Sahabah and Tabi’een but it so happens that the Jews know about it?
vii. The Jews of Khaybar fought Messenger and his companions, what did they deserve to be granted such an exemption from the obligation of Jizya, when other tribes just as bad were not exempted?
viii. Had the Prophet exempted them from the Jizya he would not have stipulated that they be expelled whenever he (saw) willed. This does not fit with the ruling that the Ahl al-Zimmah cannot be expelled as long as they abide by the rules of Islam.
ix. If the Prophet had exempted them when did none of the Sahabah exempt them? [15]
Science of Conflicting Hadith (Mukhtalaful Hadith):
It is inevitable that some reports will seem contradictory since one hadith may be general while the other is specific, or one is misquote while the other is accurate or if one has abrogated the other. Therefore, it was necessary to establish a methodology by which such seeming contradictions can be reconciled. It was for this reason that the science of Mukhtalaf al-Hadith was developed.
When presented with two sets of contradictory hadith one of three options are possible. Either one can resort to Jam’ or reconciliation of the hadith by considering whole host of issues such as textual indication (madlool al-Lafz) or if this is not possible then outweigh (tarjeeh) one report over the other if the chronology is not known and finally accept abrogation if the chronology known.
Imam al-Asnawi said: ‘When two evidences contradict then one is outweighed over the other if it is not possible to act upon both of them. If it is possible to act upon them even if it is from one aspect and not in another then we should not proceed to Tarjeeh (outweighing). This is because acting upon both evidences is better than neglecting one text completely since in origin a daleel should be acted upon and not neglected.’ [16]
Thus, the means of removing the contradiction are three:
a) Jam’ (reconciliation)
b) Tarjeeh (outweighing if the chronology is not known)
c) Naskh, abrogation if chronology is known.
d) If none of the above methods are possible then revert back to the original rule and assume the contradictory texts are non-existent.
The process of Jam’ is where you try to reconcile two contradictory texts due to certain linguistic and circumstantial considerations. For example the textual indications (madlul al-Lafz) can assist in the reconciliation between two texts. In one hadith it says: ‘Water is pure so nothing can make it impure.’ [17] While another says: ‘If the water is enough to fill two pots (qullatayn), it carries no impurity.’ [18] The first text is ‘Aam for all amounts of water but the mafhum of the second text indicates that water can become impure if its nature is changed. This is a specification (takhsees) of the first text by the mafhum of the second.
As for Tarjeeh this can happen in a number of ways. One way is if one of the conflicting hadith accords with another authentic hadith. For example one hadith says: ’There is no Nikah without a wali.’ [19] This hadith stipulates the presence of a wali but it seems to contradicts with another hadith which indicates the wali is not stipulated. That hadith is as follows: ‘The matron has greater right than her guardians and the virgin her permission is sought. Her permission is her silence’ [20] But the first hadith stipulating the presence of wali agrees with another sound narration which says: ‘Any woman who gets married without the permission of her guardian (Wali), her marriage will be void, her marriage will be void, her marriage will be void’ [21] Therefore, the Tarjeeh will be that the hadith which says there is no nikah without wali is outweighed and accepted because it is supported by another authentic narration.
As for abrogation this happens when Jam’ is not possible but abrogation is possible because the chronology is known. For example one hadith says: ‘The one who cups blood and is cupped has broken his fast.’ But another ahdith says: ‘That the Prophet (saw) was cupped while he was fasting.’ If we scrutinize the circumstances of these hadiths we find that first hadith took place in year eighth of the Hijrah during Fath while the second hadith is in the Farwell speech (Hijjatul Widaa’) in the year 10 after Hijrah. Thus, ash-Shafi’I took the view that the second hadith has abrogated the first thereby allowing the cupping of blood while fasting in Ramadan.
Conclusion
The Muslims rose to the challenge when the source of their way of life was being threatened by destructive activities of hadith fabricators. They were able to amass a data base of thousands of narrators, set out rigorous criteria to asses authenticity, classify and adopt a grading system for chains narrators, devise techniques to detect and avert mistakes and fabrications and adopt a methodology to reconcile the differences within certain texts. The result was the effective preservation of the ideology and its legislative capacity.
If we compare the system of Isnad to the modern system of historical analysis we will find the former much more sophisticated and successful in establishing the veracity of historical incidents and events. What the Muslims called a Da’eef hadith is perhaps stronger in historicity, in some of its forms, than modern sources such history textbooks, numismatics or historical criticism of literary texts. This is because Da’eef does not mean fabrication but that it did not satisfy our stringent criteria. So when Nizam al-Islam mentions that riwaayah or narration is the strongest and most reliable source of history, not archeological findings, it assumes knowledge of the above discussion of the Isnad system.
Thus, the Muslims protected their ideology, insured the legislative capacity and preserved their Islamic civilization. Muslim historiography in this regard is a testament to how the Ummah can solve her problems, progress and revive if she adopts the Islamic ‘Aqeedah as the basis for her thoughts, society and state.
Kamal Abu Zahra
References
[1] The Islamic state p.199
[2] Sahih Zarkashi’s al-Ijaabah li-iraad maa istadrakathu ‘aisha ‘alas Sahabah p.76
[3] Bukhari, Kitab al-Adab, hadith: 80
[4] See Fathul Bari and section on Ibn Hajars discussion of Aisha’s hadith.
[5] Taqreeb see page 37
[6] See al-Kifayah fee ‘ilm ar-Riwaayah pp119
[7] See Abu Bakr Ahmed b. ‘Ali b. Thabit ( al-Khatib al-Baghdad ), Kitab al-Kifaya fi ‘ilm ar-Riwaya ( al-Maktaba al-’ilmiyya bi al-Madina al-Munawwara, n.d.) see p.164.
[8] al-Muhaddith al-Fasil p.406
[9] see Abn Abu Hatim al-Razi, al-Jarh wat-ta’deel
[10] an-Nukhba an-nabhaniyyahp. 123. the hadith is in bukhari in kitab al-buyu’.
[11] ‘ghareeb in matn for some is like shaz (contradiction of thiqaat) but for others its just irregular but not a cause for ta’n……but gharaabah in sanad it is saheeh but point is it is low in value, hence Imam Malik said: ‘the worst knowledge is the ghareeb and the best knowledge is the zaahir narrated by the people.’
[12] Ma’aalim as-sunan, vol 1, p.11.
[13] See as-Siba’I, as-Sunnah wa makaanatuhu fit tashree’ al-Islami
[14] Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi says: ‘All the statements come under three categories. Of them one is to be known to be erroneous. The cause of this knowledge is that ‘Aql refused to accept it.’ [Kifayah p. 17]
[15] Naqd al-Manqool, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, p.90-93
[16] Nihayat as-suwal vol 3 p.214.’
[17] Abu dawud.
[18] An-Nasa`i
[19] Abu Dawud
[20] Sahih Muslim
[21] al-Hakim
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
The of Isnad
The Role of Isnad in the Preservation of the Islamic Civilisation
(PART 1)
The Islamic ideology derives from the Qur'an and Sunnah. Legislation in Islam is also derived from these two sources. Therefore if any one of these sources is lost or distorted then the risk is to the ideology as a whole. The Isnad is the chain of narrators through which the Sunnah reaches us. In this respect the study of Isnad is not a peripheral discipline in Islam but fundamental to the preservation of the ideology itself. Here follows an article in two parts that will attempt to the address this important issue. Part one will look at the history and challenges involved in preserving the Sunnah and part two will describe the techniques used to guarantee the correctness of narrations.
Without Isnad, the Sunnah as a source of ahkam (rules) would cease to exist. Without Isnad, we would lose the ability to elaborate, specify and restrict the ambivalent, general and absolute import of the Quranic text since the role of the Sunnah is to clarify the Qur'an. Without Isnad, extraction of Shar'iah rules for new realities from the Sunnah would cease to exist. Without Isnad, foreign elements could have been incorporated within the ideology due to their false attribution to the Prophet r. Thus, Isnad is crucial for the purity, clarity and crystallization of the Islamic ideology and its ability to solve new problems from its legislative source.
That is why 'Abdullah b. Mubarak the teacher of Imam al-Bukhari did not exaggerate when he said:
"The Isnad is part of the Deen: had it not been for the Isnad, whoever wished to would have said whatever he liked.'
It is also precisely for this reason that the Orientalists have sought to create doubt in the efficacy of the Isnad. The wholesale rejection of hadith as a historical source was first argued by an Orientalist named Ignaz Goldziher in volume 2 of his book: ‘Muslim Studies’. Goldziger was then followed by Joseph Schact who developed his ideas and tried to present a substantial body of proof to this effect in his work: 'The origins of Muhammadan jurisprudence' which was published in 1950. Also more recently Gautier Juynboll in his, 'Muslim Tradition. Studies in chronology, provenance and authorship of early hadith' has developed further techniques to prove the false nature of the hadith literature. The general thrust of Orientalism since Goldziher has tended to impute doubt, in various degrees, on the corpus of hadith literature. For them the elaborate Isnad which the Muslims adduce as proof of authenticity have either been doctored or embellished such that the hadith literature is more a reflection of the time in which they were fabricated, i.e. the political and sectarian milieu of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, than the time they are supposed to go back to which is the time of the Prophet (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) and his noble companions (ra). This is one of the more serious and fundamental attacks by Orientalists on the Islamic ideology. By throwing doubt on these sources it would be possible to demolish the whole edifice, which rests upon them. It was in this vein that attempts were made to discredit the historical authenticity of the hadith literature.
In addition we see the influence of this thought on modernism and modernist thinking where Sunnah as a source of legislation is markedly absent in the political field. Hence we see amongst some Muslims an attitude which considers the Sunnah of lesser importance than the Qur'an simply because the hadith requires further study and scrutiny as compared to the Qur'an. This has led to people either disregarding or neglecting ahkam simply because it is not found explicitly in the Qur'an. Hadith discussing the unity of the Muslims, the obligation to appoint a Khaleefah, or the ruling that a woman cannot be ruler to name but a few are brushed aside or not given their due weight because they are 'hadith' and not an ayah of the Qur'an.
Dr Asghar Ali Engineer in his book ‘The Islamic State’ says: 'There is no fixed concept of an Islamic state - much less a divinely ordained one to be treated immutable. The Koran, as pointed out, elucidates a concept of society, not of a state. The theory of Islamic state, as we have seen in the preceding chapters, changed and conformed more to the concrete situations than to any a priori concept.' [1] The hadith discussing the Khilafah were fabricated by the rulers to justify their rule. He says: 'In the metamorphosed state set-up there was nothing more Islamic than the fact that the ruler professed Islam and enforced certain provisions of the Shari'ah in personal and criminal matters. It was the result of such circumstances that a number of traditions were coined justifying any regime which did as little as enforcing the Islamic way of prayer.' He then proceeds to quote the rigorously authenticated hadith in Sahih Muslim as example of such fabrication. The text of that hadith is:
'In the near future there will be Amirs and you will like their good deeds and dislike their bad deeds. One who sees through their bad deeds (and tries to prevent their repetition by his hand or through his speech) is absolved from blame, but one who hates their bad deeds (in the heart of his heart, being unable to prevent their recurrence by his hand or his tongue), is (also) safe (so far as God"s wrath is concerned). But one who approves of their bad deeds and imitates them is spiritually ruined. People asked (the Prophet): Shouldn't we fight against them? He replied: No, as long as they establish their prayers.'
This is exactly the view held by Goldziher who claimed that the political hadith literature was a product of the political and sectarian background of the Umayyad caliphate. Recently Dr Engineer gave a presentation in which he sought to prove gender equality and his approach was solely his own personal interpretation of the Qur'an without any recourse to the hadith. His reason for this is that hadith were recorded a hundred years after the event, they are contradictory or contradict his own reading of the Qur'an and therefore not a reliable source for Tafseer of the Qur'an.
This attitude is dangerous as it is tantamount to disregarding the revelation of Allah (subhanahu wa ta'aala) and the reason for this reverts back to the pragmatic view of the Shar'iah and a sense that hadith is somehow of lesser worth due to the difficulties posed in establishing its authenticity.
Therefore, it is crucial to demonstrate the firm conviction in Sunnah as a source of legislation by demonstrating the sophistication and success of the hadith methodology in preserving the Sunnah. However, the way I will be discussing this topic is not to present it as discipline of Musatalah al-Hadith as has been traditionally done but to take relevant aspects of the discipline to give an outline and conception of the methodology and system itself. As for a detailed refutation of Orientalist arguments and proofs, this will not be possible here due to lack of space but it is thoroughly dealt with in my forthcoming work: 'The Role of Isnad in the Preservation of the Islamic Civilisation'
Historical background and the Birth of Isnad
Before we discuss the hadith methodology, I wish to recount the historical background of Isnad so that we can appreciate the context in which the Isnad was born and the problems and challenges Muslims faced in protecting the ideology from the pernicious activities of fabricators.
If we start with the time of the Messenger (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) we find that authenticity was not an issue since the Prophet (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) was with the Sahabah (ra) and they were able to correct each other if any mistakes were made in narration. So for example 'Umar (ra) once narrated that the Messenger (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) said: 'The deceased is punished due to the weeping of his family'
But 'Aisha (ra) corrected him by saying: 'The Prophet (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) said this regarding a Jewess that she was punished whilst her family were crying for her' meaning that she was punished due to dying upon kufr while the family wept and not because the family was weeping for her [2]. At this time Isnad was at its rudimentary stage because of the proximity to the Prophet (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) but this did not stop the Sahabah (ra) from checking strange attributions or corroborating reports when in doubt.
The earliest record of fabrication of hadith started after the first civil war between Ali (ra) and Mu'awiya (ra) from 35 A.H following the murder of Uthman (ra). According to Ibn Sirin who died in the year 110 AH: 'They did not ask about the Isnad but when civil war (fitna) arose they said: Name to us your men; those who belong to Ahl al-Sunnah, their traditions were accepted and those who were innovators their traditions were neglected.' After this time the fabrications increased with varying motivations. Initially the false attributions reflected political differences. According to Ibn Abi al-Hadid: 'Lies were introduced in Hadith on merits originally by Shi'ah. They in the beginning fabricated many hadith in favour of their man motivated by enmity towards their opponents. When Bakriyya (ie supporters of Abu Bakr) found out what the Shi'ah had done they fabricated on their part hadith in favour of their man.'
Disagreements in 'Aqaa`id (aspects of belief) also led the unscrupulous to fabricate hadith in support of their sectarian positions.
Some fabricated hadith to support the founder of their own school like the report which says:'There will be among my Ummah a man named Abu Haneefah who will be the Suraj (light) of my Ummah.'
Or the fabrication referring to ash-Shafi'i which says: 'There will be among my Ummah a man named Muhammad b. Idrees who will be more harmful to my Ummah than Iblees.' Other categories of people who fabricated hadith were well-intentioned pious people who wanted encourage Ta'aat or the story tellers (Qussas) who wanted to entertain the people with their wild and amazing stories.
Another faction which fabricated hadith were the Zindeeqs i.e. people who outwardly manifested Islam but hated it and wanted to destroy it by giving a ridiculous and irrational impression of Islam through their fabrications.
The Challenges faced by the Muslims:
Revival is intellectual elevation. When society is elevated in thoughts it looks at problems in an enlightened manner and derives solutions on an enlightened basis directed by its viewpoint about life and hence that society progresses and solves its problems effectively and thereby achieves revival. One of the best examples of revival or elevation in thought is the way Muslims dealt with the problem of hadith authenticity and fabrication. From the brief account of history given above the enormous task faced by the Muslims is clear. There were thousands of transmitters scattered throughout the Islamic lands and an even greater number of reports to sift through. From these they managed to select the sound narrations from the weak and compile them along with their chains of transmitters in such an effective manner that it is unparalleled by any form of historical verification known at the time and beyond. And this was done in the days when the best form of data storage was the human memory or parchment and messengers on horses were the quickest form of communication.
To appreciate how challenging this was, let us look at the difficulties the Muslims had to resolve in order to safeguard the hadith. The first hurdle to overcome was to establish continuity of the chain i.e. that there were no gaps in the chain. This required that the birth and death dates of narrators had to be catalogued as well as the cities form which they came in order to establish the possibility that they had met and hence were able to transmit the hadith. The second issue that had to be ascertained was the probity and mendacity of transmitters. It is not enough to have an unbroken chain if one of the transmitters is of unsound character. Like any chain, all that is necessary for the whole thing to collapse is one weak link, which would allow it to fall apart easily. So one liar in the chain will weaken the report even if the rest of the chain is littered with illustrious and trustworthy personalities. In fact it was the names of illustrious and respected people that were used by fabricators to pass off their dishonest material. For this reason the Muslims needed to gather information about the narrators, which if one thinks about it is not an easy accomplishment, since it involved assessing the character and state of mind of thousands upon thousands of transmitters. This repository of biographical material then would be used to identify each and every transmitter in the chain. Now having amassed this information there needs to be some criteria as to what would constitute a reliable narrator whose report could be believed. So is it enough for the narrator to be trustworthy before we take his report or should we impose extra safeguards? What about memory? Some people are trustworthy but prone to forget or make significant mistakes or get their reports muddled up. How do we deal with these problems?
Also, as we know, usually there is more than one chain for a single hadith; how can we classify these to indicate the various levels of strength and authenticity since the Shari'ah has imposed different criteria in respect to actions and belief? As with all human dependencies, mistakes will be made so how can we avert mistakes and maintain accuracy in transmission? What about the ostensibly sincere fabricators of hadith who are of sound memory but concoct reports for what they believe to be well- intentioned and noble aims? How do we catch them out? What kind of techniques and approaches can be developed to detect forgery and deception? And finally, at times we find two reports both of which are authentic according to the stringent criteria laid out but they contain an apparent contradiction. This is not surprising when you are dealing with reports describing sayings and actions taking place in diverse circumstances in their generic and specific contexts spanning the prophetic lifetime of the Messenger r. Coupled with this is the possibility of a mistake that has gone undetected due to forgetfulness or misunderstanding the intent of a statement or action. Since the Wahy (revelation), as we know, in principle does not contradict itself, how do we reconcile such seemingly apparent contradictions?
These are just a glimpse of the key issues the Muslims had to answer if the Sunnah was to be protected from loss and corruption from foreign elements. The result was the development of four distinct sciences to combat fabrication, namely:
1.
'ilm tareekh rowaah, which dealt with the crucial issue of the dates of birth and death of transmitters.
'ilm jarh wat ta'deel, consisting of the manners of disqualification and authenti cation of transmitters.
ilm ghareeb al-hadith, which is study of the irregular aspects of matn and Isnad.
2.
'ilm mukhtalafil hadith, which discusses the techniques of reconciling and outweighing seemingly contradictory hadith.
In the ensuing discussion I will highlight the key features of the above sciences to show how the problems posed above were tackled.
The Biographical (rijal) Literature
The first step in verifying a report is to know the reality of the person reporting a piece of news. That is why Allah (subhanahu wa ta'aala) says:
'O you who believe! If a Fasiq comes to you with a news, verify it, lest you harm people in ignorance, and afterwards you become regretful to what you have done.' [49:6]
Here the 'illah (divine reason) for verifying or scrutinizing a report is the potential harm that will be caused by accepting a false report. It is on the basis of this ayah that the Muhadditheen began to seek out information about narrators in order to verify their narrations. But what about recording and publicizing the defects of such narrators, what is the Shar'iah justification for doing this? Al-Bukhari reported on the authority of 'Aisha (ra) said that:
'A man asked permission to enter upon Allah's Apostle. The Prophet said, "Admit him. What an evil brother of his people or a son of his people." But when the man entered, the Prophet spoke to him in a very polite manner. (And when that person left) I said, "O Allah's Apostle! You had said what you had said, yet you spoke to him in a very polite manner?" The Prophet said, "O 'Aisha! The worst people are those whom the people desert or leave in order to save themselves from their dirty language or from their transgression.'[3]
This hadith teaches us that in warning the Muslims from a harm it is allowed to backbite because the man Rasulullah (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) was warning about is one man named 'Uyaynah b. Hisn who outwardly showed that he was a Muslim though in reality he was not a Muslim. Rasulullah (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) wanted to warn the people about this man so he said what an evil man he is. This is indicated by the Prophet's (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) answer to A'isha (ra) when she asked him why he used bad language, he (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) replied that the one who used bad language is the worst of people yet he (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) used bad language to describe this man. Therefore the reason must be that he wanted to warn the people and not to abuse the man and hence when he (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) met him he (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) was very polite to him. Imam al-Qurtubi commenting on this hadith said: 'The Hadith contains the permission to backbite the one who publicly shows his Fisq or Fahsh and the like from unjust rulers or those who call to innovation though it is allowed to do it in a polite manner as long as it does not lead to compromising the Deen of Allah Ta'aala.'[3] Thus, when we come to narrators of hadith it is clear that unscrupulous hadith narrators are not only harmful to Muslims but to Islam itself and therefore their faults must be recorded so that no hadith will be accepted from them.
The endeavour to verify the reports gave rise to the science of Rijal (i.e. the knowledge and collation of the biography of narrators) and the Science of Jarh (disparagement) and Ta'deel (attestation). Information regarding the probity and precision of narrators were recorded whether the information was disparaging or confirmed the reliability. The honest defamation or Ta'n was considered part of the Deen since it was necessary to protect the Deen. In collecting this material, the rijal critics spared no one to the extent that even the son would criticize his father. It is reported that 'Some people asked 'Ali b. al-Madeeni, the great Rijal scholar, about his father. He said: Ask somebody else. They repeated the question. He fell silent and then lifted his head and said: This (is part) of the Deen. He (my father) is weak (da'eef).' It is for this reason that people like the great Tabi'I 'Ata b. as-Saa`ib and well-known Seerah writer Ibn Ishaq were not spared from criticism. Yayha b. Ma'een said: 'We disparaged people who had already been admitted to Jannah more than a hundred years ago.' Their prime motivation for doing this was fear of Allah (subhanahu wa ta'aala) and not the fear of the people. It is reported that Yahya b. Sa'eed al-Qattan was asked: 'Do you not fear that those people whose hadith you have rejected will dispute against you before Allah?' He said: 'No, that these people should dispute with me is better than the Messenger of Allah (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) disputing with me by saying: Why did you narrate a hadith, which you thought was a lie?'
Kamal Hussain
Part II will appear in next month's issue
References
[1] Dr Asghar Ali Engineer-The Islamic State p.199
[2] Sahih Zarkashi's al-Ijaabah li-iraad maa istadrakatahu 'aisha' alas Sahaba p.76
[3] See Fathul Bari and section on Ibn Hajar's discussion of Aisha's (ra) hadith
(PART 1)
The Islamic ideology derives from the Qur'an and Sunnah. Legislation in Islam is also derived from these two sources. Therefore if any one of these sources is lost or distorted then the risk is to the ideology as a whole. The Isnad is the chain of narrators through which the Sunnah reaches us. In this respect the study of Isnad is not a peripheral discipline in Islam but fundamental to the preservation of the ideology itself. Here follows an article in two parts that will attempt to the address this important issue. Part one will look at the history and challenges involved in preserving the Sunnah and part two will describe the techniques used to guarantee the correctness of narrations.
Without Isnad, the Sunnah as a source of ahkam (rules) would cease to exist. Without Isnad, we would lose the ability to elaborate, specify and restrict the ambivalent, general and absolute import of the Quranic text since the role of the Sunnah is to clarify the Qur'an. Without Isnad, extraction of Shar'iah rules for new realities from the Sunnah would cease to exist. Without Isnad, foreign elements could have been incorporated within the ideology due to their false attribution to the Prophet r. Thus, Isnad is crucial for the purity, clarity and crystallization of the Islamic ideology and its ability to solve new problems from its legislative source.
That is why 'Abdullah b. Mubarak the teacher of Imam al-Bukhari did not exaggerate when he said:
"The Isnad is part of the Deen: had it not been for the Isnad, whoever wished to would have said whatever he liked.'
It is also precisely for this reason that the Orientalists have sought to create doubt in the efficacy of the Isnad. The wholesale rejection of hadith as a historical source was first argued by an Orientalist named Ignaz Goldziher in volume 2 of his book: ‘Muslim Studies’. Goldziger was then followed by Joseph Schact who developed his ideas and tried to present a substantial body of proof to this effect in his work: 'The origins of Muhammadan jurisprudence' which was published in 1950. Also more recently Gautier Juynboll in his, 'Muslim Tradition. Studies in chronology, provenance and authorship of early hadith' has developed further techniques to prove the false nature of the hadith literature. The general thrust of Orientalism since Goldziher has tended to impute doubt, in various degrees, on the corpus of hadith literature. For them the elaborate Isnad which the Muslims adduce as proof of authenticity have either been doctored or embellished such that the hadith literature is more a reflection of the time in which they were fabricated, i.e. the political and sectarian milieu of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, than the time they are supposed to go back to which is the time of the Prophet (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) and his noble companions (ra). This is one of the more serious and fundamental attacks by Orientalists on the Islamic ideology. By throwing doubt on these sources it would be possible to demolish the whole edifice, which rests upon them. It was in this vein that attempts were made to discredit the historical authenticity of the hadith literature.
In addition we see the influence of this thought on modernism and modernist thinking where Sunnah as a source of legislation is markedly absent in the political field. Hence we see amongst some Muslims an attitude which considers the Sunnah of lesser importance than the Qur'an simply because the hadith requires further study and scrutiny as compared to the Qur'an. This has led to people either disregarding or neglecting ahkam simply because it is not found explicitly in the Qur'an. Hadith discussing the unity of the Muslims, the obligation to appoint a Khaleefah, or the ruling that a woman cannot be ruler to name but a few are brushed aside or not given their due weight because they are 'hadith' and not an ayah of the Qur'an.
Dr Asghar Ali Engineer in his book ‘The Islamic State’ says: 'There is no fixed concept of an Islamic state - much less a divinely ordained one to be treated immutable. The Koran, as pointed out, elucidates a concept of society, not of a state. The theory of Islamic state, as we have seen in the preceding chapters, changed and conformed more to the concrete situations than to any a priori concept.' [1] The hadith discussing the Khilafah were fabricated by the rulers to justify their rule. He says: 'In the metamorphosed state set-up there was nothing more Islamic than the fact that the ruler professed Islam and enforced certain provisions of the Shari'ah in personal and criminal matters. It was the result of such circumstances that a number of traditions were coined justifying any regime which did as little as enforcing the Islamic way of prayer.' He then proceeds to quote the rigorously authenticated hadith in Sahih Muslim as example of such fabrication. The text of that hadith is:
'In the near future there will be Amirs and you will like their good deeds and dislike their bad deeds. One who sees through their bad deeds (and tries to prevent their repetition by his hand or through his speech) is absolved from blame, but one who hates their bad deeds (in the heart of his heart, being unable to prevent their recurrence by his hand or his tongue), is (also) safe (so far as God"s wrath is concerned). But one who approves of their bad deeds and imitates them is spiritually ruined. People asked (the Prophet): Shouldn't we fight against them? He replied: No, as long as they establish their prayers.'
This is exactly the view held by Goldziher who claimed that the political hadith literature was a product of the political and sectarian background of the Umayyad caliphate. Recently Dr Engineer gave a presentation in which he sought to prove gender equality and his approach was solely his own personal interpretation of the Qur'an without any recourse to the hadith. His reason for this is that hadith were recorded a hundred years after the event, they are contradictory or contradict his own reading of the Qur'an and therefore not a reliable source for Tafseer of the Qur'an.
This attitude is dangerous as it is tantamount to disregarding the revelation of Allah (subhanahu wa ta'aala) and the reason for this reverts back to the pragmatic view of the Shar'iah and a sense that hadith is somehow of lesser worth due to the difficulties posed in establishing its authenticity.
Therefore, it is crucial to demonstrate the firm conviction in Sunnah as a source of legislation by demonstrating the sophistication and success of the hadith methodology in preserving the Sunnah. However, the way I will be discussing this topic is not to present it as discipline of Musatalah al-Hadith as has been traditionally done but to take relevant aspects of the discipline to give an outline and conception of the methodology and system itself. As for a detailed refutation of Orientalist arguments and proofs, this will not be possible here due to lack of space but it is thoroughly dealt with in my forthcoming work: 'The Role of Isnad in the Preservation of the Islamic Civilisation'
Historical background and the Birth of Isnad
Before we discuss the hadith methodology, I wish to recount the historical background of Isnad so that we can appreciate the context in which the Isnad was born and the problems and challenges Muslims faced in protecting the ideology from the pernicious activities of fabricators.
If we start with the time of the Messenger (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) we find that authenticity was not an issue since the Prophet (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) was with the Sahabah (ra) and they were able to correct each other if any mistakes were made in narration. So for example 'Umar (ra) once narrated that the Messenger (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) said: 'The deceased is punished due to the weeping of his family'
But 'Aisha (ra) corrected him by saying: 'The Prophet (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) said this regarding a Jewess that she was punished whilst her family were crying for her' meaning that she was punished due to dying upon kufr while the family wept and not because the family was weeping for her [2]. At this time Isnad was at its rudimentary stage because of the proximity to the Prophet (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) but this did not stop the Sahabah (ra) from checking strange attributions or corroborating reports when in doubt.
The earliest record of fabrication of hadith started after the first civil war between Ali (ra) and Mu'awiya (ra) from 35 A.H following the murder of Uthman (ra). According to Ibn Sirin who died in the year 110 AH: 'They did not ask about the Isnad but when civil war (fitna) arose they said: Name to us your men; those who belong to Ahl al-Sunnah, their traditions were accepted and those who were innovators their traditions were neglected.' After this time the fabrications increased with varying motivations. Initially the false attributions reflected political differences. According to Ibn Abi al-Hadid: 'Lies were introduced in Hadith on merits originally by Shi'ah. They in the beginning fabricated many hadith in favour of their man motivated by enmity towards their opponents. When Bakriyya (ie supporters of Abu Bakr) found out what the Shi'ah had done they fabricated on their part hadith in favour of their man.'
Disagreements in 'Aqaa`id (aspects of belief) also led the unscrupulous to fabricate hadith in support of their sectarian positions.
Some fabricated hadith to support the founder of their own school like the report which says:'There will be among my Ummah a man named Abu Haneefah who will be the Suraj (light) of my Ummah.'
Or the fabrication referring to ash-Shafi'i which says: 'There will be among my Ummah a man named Muhammad b. Idrees who will be more harmful to my Ummah than Iblees.' Other categories of people who fabricated hadith were well-intentioned pious people who wanted encourage Ta'aat or the story tellers (Qussas) who wanted to entertain the people with their wild and amazing stories.
Another faction which fabricated hadith were the Zindeeqs i.e. people who outwardly manifested Islam but hated it and wanted to destroy it by giving a ridiculous and irrational impression of Islam through their fabrications.
The Challenges faced by the Muslims:
Revival is intellectual elevation. When society is elevated in thoughts it looks at problems in an enlightened manner and derives solutions on an enlightened basis directed by its viewpoint about life and hence that society progresses and solves its problems effectively and thereby achieves revival. One of the best examples of revival or elevation in thought is the way Muslims dealt with the problem of hadith authenticity and fabrication. From the brief account of history given above the enormous task faced by the Muslims is clear. There were thousands of transmitters scattered throughout the Islamic lands and an even greater number of reports to sift through. From these they managed to select the sound narrations from the weak and compile them along with their chains of transmitters in such an effective manner that it is unparalleled by any form of historical verification known at the time and beyond. And this was done in the days when the best form of data storage was the human memory or parchment and messengers on horses were the quickest form of communication.
To appreciate how challenging this was, let us look at the difficulties the Muslims had to resolve in order to safeguard the hadith. The first hurdle to overcome was to establish continuity of the chain i.e. that there were no gaps in the chain. This required that the birth and death dates of narrators had to be catalogued as well as the cities form which they came in order to establish the possibility that they had met and hence were able to transmit the hadith. The second issue that had to be ascertained was the probity and mendacity of transmitters. It is not enough to have an unbroken chain if one of the transmitters is of unsound character. Like any chain, all that is necessary for the whole thing to collapse is one weak link, which would allow it to fall apart easily. So one liar in the chain will weaken the report even if the rest of the chain is littered with illustrious and trustworthy personalities. In fact it was the names of illustrious and respected people that were used by fabricators to pass off their dishonest material. For this reason the Muslims needed to gather information about the narrators, which if one thinks about it is not an easy accomplishment, since it involved assessing the character and state of mind of thousands upon thousands of transmitters. This repository of biographical material then would be used to identify each and every transmitter in the chain. Now having amassed this information there needs to be some criteria as to what would constitute a reliable narrator whose report could be believed. So is it enough for the narrator to be trustworthy before we take his report or should we impose extra safeguards? What about memory? Some people are trustworthy but prone to forget or make significant mistakes or get their reports muddled up. How do we deal with these problems?
Also, as we know, usually there is more than one chain for a single hadith; how can we classify these to indicate the various levels of strength and authenticity since the Shari'ah has imposed different criteria in respect to actions and belief? As with all human dependencies, mistakes will be made so how can we avert mistakes and maintain accuracy in transmission? What about the ostensibly sincere fabricators of hadith who are of sound memory but concoct reports for what they believe to be well- intentioned and noble aims? How do we catch them out? What kind of techniques and approaches can be developed to detect forgery and deception? And finally, at times we find two reports both of which are authentic according to the stringent criteria laid out but they contain an apparent contradiction. This is not surprising when you are dealing with reports describing sayings and actions taking place in diverse circumstances in their generic and specific contexts spanning the prophetic lifetime of the Messenger r. Coupled with this is the possibility of a mistake that has gone undetected due to forgetfulness or misunderstanding the intent of a statement or action. Since the Wahy (revelation), as we know, in principle does not contradict itself, how do we reconcile such seemingly apparent contradictions?
These are just a glimpse of the key issues the Muslims had to answer if the Sunnah was to be protected from loss and corruption from foreign elements. The result was the development of four distinct sciences to combat fabrication, namely:
1.
'ilm tareekh rowaah, which dealt with the crucial issue of the dates of birth and death of transmitters.
'ilm jarh wat ta'deel, consisting of the manners of disqualification and authenti cation of transmitters.
ilm ghareeb al-hadith, which is study of the irregular aspects of matn and Isnad.
2.
'ilm mukhtalafil hadith, which discusses the techniques of reconciling and outweighing seemingly contradictory hadith.
In the ensuing discussion I will highlight the key features of the above sciences to show how the problems posed above were tackled.
The Biographical (rijal) Literature
The first step in verifying a report is to know the reality of the person reporting a piece of news. That is why Allah (subhanahu wa ta'aala) says:
'O you who believe! If a Fasiq comes to you with a news, verify it, lest you harm people in ignorance, and afterwards you become regretful to what you have done.' [49:6]
Here the 'illah (divine reason) for verifying or scrutinizing a report is the potential harm that will be caused by accepting a false report. It is on the basis of this ayah that the Muhadditheen began to seek out information about narrators in order to verify their narrations. But what about recording and publicizing the defects of such narrators, what is the Shar'iah justification for doing this? Al-Bukhari reported on the authority of 'Aisha (ra) said that:
'A man asked permission to enter upon Allah's Apostle. The Prophet said, "Admit him. What an evil brother of his people or a son of his people." But when the man entered, the Prophet spoke to him in a very polite manner. (And when that person left) I said, "O Allah's Apostle! You had said what you had said, yet you spoke to him in a very polite manner?" The Prophet said, "O 'Aisha! The worst people are those whom the people desert or leave in order to save themselves from their dirty language or from their transgression.'[3]
This hadith teaches us that in warning the Muslims from a harm it is allowed to backbite because the man Rasulullah (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) was warning about is one man named 'Uyaynah b. Hisn who outwardly showed that he was a Muslim though in reality he was not a Muslim. Rasulullah (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) wanted to warn the people about this man so he said what an evil man he is. This is indicated by the Prophet's (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) answer to A'isha (ra) when she asked him why he used bad language, he (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) replied that the one who used bad language is the worst of people yet he (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) used bad language to describe this man. Therefore the reason must be that he wanted to warn the people and not to abuse the man and hence when he (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) met him he (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) was very polite to him. Imam al-Qurtubi commenting on this hadith said: 'The Hadith contains the permission to backbite the one who publicly shows his Fisq or Fahsh and the like from unjust rulers or those who call to innovation though it is allowed to do it in a polite manner as long as it does not lead to compromising the Deen of Allah Ta'aala.'[3] Thus, when we come to narrators of hadith it is clear that unscrupulous hadith narrators are not only harmful to Muslims but to Islam itself and therefore their faults must be recorded so that no hadith will be accepted from them.
The endeavour to verify the reports gave rise to the science of Rijal (i.e. the knowledge and collation of the biography of narrators) and the Science of Jarh (disparagement) and Ta'deel (attestation). Information regarding the probity and precision of narrators were recorded whether the information was disparaging or confirmed the reliability. The honest defamation or Ta'n was considered part of the Deen since it was necessary to protect the Deen. In collecting this material, the rijal critics spared no one to the extent that even the son would criticize his father. It is reported that 'Some people asked 'Ali b. al-Madeeni, the great Rijal scholar, about his father. He said: Ask somebody else. They repeated the question. He fell silent and then lifted his head and said: This (is part) of the Deen. He (my father) is weak (da'eef).' It is for this reason that people like the great Tabi'I 'Ata b. as-Saa`ib and well-known Seerah writer Ibn Ishaq were not spared from criticism. Yayha b. Ma'een said: 'We disparaged people who had already been admitted to Jannah more than a hundred years ago.' Their prime motivation for doing this was fear of Allah (subhanahu wa ta'aala) and not the fear of the people. It is reported that Yahya b. Sa'eed al-Qattan was asked: 'Do you not fear that those people whose hadith you have rejected will dispute against you before Allah?' He said: 'No, that these people should dispute with me is better than the Messenger of Allah (salAllahu alaihi wasallam) disputing with me by saying: Why did you narrate a hadith, which you thought was a lie?'
Kamal Hussain
Part II will appear in next month's issue
References
[1] Dr Asghar Ali Engineer-The Islamic State p.199
[2] Sahih Zarkashi's al-Ijaabah li-iraad maa istadrakatahu 'aisha' alas Sahaba p.76
[3] See Fathul Bari and section on Ibn Hajar's discussion of Aisha's (ra) hadith
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