Say: "Allah's guidance is the (only) guidance and we have been directed to submit ourselves to the Lord of the worlds." Q. 6:71
The Science of Hadith
For a Muslim, the prophetic Hadith is the secondary document after the Qur’an. However, the majority of Muslims have little or no background knowledge of the historical facts behind the compilation of the corpus of Hadith and will be more inclined to focus on the matn (content of narrative). It is not an easy task even for learned scholars to establish how reliable were these chains of narrators and/or compilers.
The word "hadith" literally means; "a saying", "a report", "an account". Within Islamic circles and literature, the term is used to identify a text that is related to a "re-narrated" saying or account of deeds or approval by the Prophet. However, if one was to review the physical process involved in the collection and compilation of these texts, one realizes that these "reported" texts have gone through a process of several "re-narrated" verbal transmissions involving a chain of narrators covering six or more generations. Some of these narrators were reliable and unfailing in their verbal reports and others were not. Often, if the narrator was known as "a man of faith", then it was believed that he could not utter a lie, and this was an essential criterion used by a compiler.
Often the revealed verses of the Qur'an and the reported versions of hadiths are quoted on the internet concurrently or simultaneously. Internet surfers are not necessarily educated to know that these two separate "texts" are independent of one another. To define "hadith" as "the literal or precise verbatim of the factual sayings, deeds or approvals of the Prophet of Islam (peace and blessings of Allah be upon all Prophets and their true companions)", could be technically inaccurate and in some instances fundamentally wrong. The numerous and complex classifications of hadiths organize them into categories ranging from authentic to deliberate falsehood.
Today the corpus of Hadith is to be found far from its original home and context. Hadiths were originally part of the oral tradition of Islam, but after two hundred years of transmission and circulation, they were crystallized into written form.
To understand the background to the development of Hadith literature one must sift through the history of Islam from about 250 years after the time of our Prophet… during the first century of the Prophet's era no hadiths were written down… Stories circulated by word of mouth but they were never written down because the view was well known that the Prophet and the companions did not want anything of the kind to be done, and so there was a very strong feeling against the writing of any sort of 'Hadith' literature.
The so-called 'Science of isnad' -- touchstone of a hadith's authenticity -- has tremendous flaws in it. How, then, can we go on giving credence to something that was not written down and yet which, some 250 years after the fact, Bukhari supposedly managed to trace back to its source (i.e. the Prophet) by establishing all the links in a chain which cannot possibly have been genuinely reconstructed! How he (Bukhari) managed to do this without written records, bridging a gap of about eight generations, and simultaneously establishing not only biographical data but also a compelling analysis of the mental faculties of his subjects defies belief! One can quote several hundred hadiths that not only contradict the Qur’an but also clearly do damage to the Prophet's good name.
Did Prophet commend the writing of his “sayings”?
There was a lapse of nearly two centuries from the year of the death of the Prophet to the time when most of the hadiths were compiled. This time factor alone is enough to make one question the accuracy of the written hadiths. But why were hadiths not written down during the Prophet's time, or by his followers? Perhaps it was due to the Prophet's command to efface the texts of his sayings, which was reaffirmed and reenacted by Caliph Mu'awiyah, some thirty years or so after the death of the Prophet. This was when his attention to the Prophet's command was directed by Zayd ibn Thabit - the Prophet's closet scribe and secretary.
Here is the text that has been recorded in the Sunan of Abu-Dawood under Hadith No. 1635 (3640):
Al-Muttalib ibn Abdullah ibn Hantab said:
"Zayd ibn Thabit entered upon Mu'awiyah and asked him about a tradition. He ordered a man to write it. Zayd said: The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) ordered us not to write any of his traditions. So he erased it."
And another :
Abu Saeed al-Khudri said,
"We exerted our best to get the Messenger of Allah to allow us to write his hadith but he refused." (This was recorded by al-Baghdadi in Taqyid.)
It is an accepted traditional norm to classify the narrators upon the basis of their direct and personal contact with the Prophet or upon the basis of their direct and personal contact with someone who had direct contact with the Prophet. Within the revealed verses of the Qur’an, 9:43-50, Allah has given us an eye-opening example from which we must learn two most important lessons:
- The Prophet himself could not discern amongst his own people, amongst the people who were living in the same period in the history, or amongst those who had personally met and spoken with him, those who were sincere and those who were "the liars".
- There were limitations to the knowledge of the Prophet. Events that took place around him and in his own time were unknown to him. So, the Prophet cannot necessarily speak of the past, let alone of the future, unless Allah revealed it to him.
It is an undisputed fact that the compilers of the Hadith did reject a large majority of narrations (the figure runs in hundreds of thousands) as being invented, fabricated, faulty or too weak to be recorded. There are many reasons or circumstances for these superfluities.
The Recording of the Qur’an – a Striking Contrast
In contrast to the uncertainty surrounding the recording of hadiths, the Prophet not only permitted the recording of the revealed verses of the Qur'an but also personally dictated the revealed texts to scribes who were good in the art of calligraphy. The "pre-recorded" verses of the Revealed Texts (the Qur'an) were collected by the first Caliph of Islam - Abu Bakr, who died within two years of the death of the Prophet. The final compilation of these pre-recorded verses and the making of a definitive canon was undertaken by a commission appointed by the third Caliph Uthman ibn 'Affan. A well-known scribe named Zayd ibn Thabit headed this formal commission. Within twenty-three years of the death of the Prophet, copies made from the definitive canon established by the Commission and approved by the Caliph were distributed to various Islamic centers. One such is preserved in the former Soviet Union. Allah Himself has undertaken to safeguard the revealed verses of the Glorious Qur'an:
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| Is this not what the Prophet practiced and preached? |
“Verily, We, it is We who have sent down the Qur’an and assuredly, We will guard it (from corruption).” Q. 15:9
Conclusion
The verses of hadiths have no such assurance, neither from Allah nor from the Prophet. In fact the Collection of Hadith has not been safeguarded. Perhaps the Muslims, with their different sects and factions, could be better united by upholding the Qur'an first and foremost:
And hold fast, all of you together, to the Rope of Allah, and be not divided among yourselves. And remember with gratitude Allah's favour on you; for you were enemies and He joined your hearts in love, so that you become as brothers by His grace... Q. 3:103
