Light On the Muhammadan Sunnah Or Defence of the Hadith

Narration in Islam

The Companions used to learn under the Messenger of Allah (S) in a scientific way so as to be acquainted with the religious teachings and rules. Thus the meetings held by him (S) were the first knowledge circles that were ever widely known throughout Arabian history, with his being the first man to teach people.

When he (S) passed away, the science of riwayah emerged on the scene, since no any way or option for inference (istidlal) and determination was there but only through it. Abu Bakr was never accepting any hadith from anyone unless be confirmed by a witness that it was heard from the Messenger (S), 176 the job that could be easily done due to nearness of the Prophet’s lifetime to that period, availability of the Companions and the material (of hadith) was still not abrogated.

Also Umar used to verify and investigate the authenticity of transmission, as hypocrisy prevailed among people, with the need becoming more urgent to the riwayah. Besides, Umar, Uthman and ‘A’ishah with majority of the Companions used to scrutinize the narrations cited to them, refuting and returning them to their transmitters. Then Umar feared that people expatiate upon narration abundantly, where blemish would find way into it with imposture and falsification be made by the hypocrite and libertine and the bedouin. So he kept on commanding them to lessen the number of narrations, with being so strict toward those narrating abundantly or reporting a hadith on (religious) rules without introducing a witness confirming it. Because the prolific narrator, though reporting some correct traditions, cannot be immune against tahrif (misconstruction) or addition or omission in the narrations. It is reported that the Prophet (S) said: Whoever falsily ascribes

any saying to me, his abode shall be Fire.

177 Due to this precaution and abstaining from riwayah, many of the eminent Companions and the favourites near the Messenger (may God’s peace and benediction be upon him and his Progeny), like Abu Bakr, al-Zubayr, Abu Ubaydah, and al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib used to narrate less traditions than others or rather some of them would even narrate nothing, such as Sa’id ibn Zayd who was one among the ten men promised with paradise.

The most prolific in narration among the Companions was Abu Hurayrah, who kept company of the Prophet for three years,

178 surviving after him for about fifty years. 179 For this reason Umar, Uthman and A’ishah were all the time disapproving his narrations with accusing him (of falsification), rendering him to be the first narrator ever accused throughout Islam. A’ishah was the severest in disapproving his traditions, due to the too long period she and he lived contemporaneously, as her death came to be one year before his. Thereafter erupted the insurrection during the days of Uthman, after which there was uproar and so much talk regarding the caliphate, with people indulging in sorts of suspicion, perplexity and anxiety. Consequently there were many narrators who would neither take precaution nor verify or investigate (the traditions), the fact that became so common and familiar among people, who never cared for inquiring the veracity of traditions, or referring the riwayah to a decisive testimony or an establishing proof. But all the errors that occurred in the hadith previously were only due to inadvertence and ignorance on the part of the narrator. The Companion 180 (of the Prophet) Imran ibn Husayn is reported to have said: By God, had I found it necessary, I would have reported from the Messenger of Allah (upon whom be God’s peace and benediction) as much as I willed, for two consecutive days, but I abstained from so doing when noticing a number of the Companions of the Messenger, though having heard what I heard and witnessed what I witnessed, relating traditions whose original wording and expressions be far from what

they were narrating. So I feared of falling into imagination and misconception as happened to them. But the fact I want to disclose being that their practice was only out of mistake on their part and was never done by them on purpose. 181

The fact to be observed here is that this procedure was followed at a time when all the standards were still standing and branches were still there (i.e. material of hadith was still extant and undestroyed), with the situation reaching not the exacerbated degree yet. But after the revolt of the Kharijites, and people’s tending to form sects and communities (firaq), dividing the society into schisms, some of the Companions embarked on making of the hadith as a trade (for earning living), composing and fabricating false traditions. Then appeared on the scene, the relators and Zanadiqah, and people of too ancient akhbar (reports), 182 that were similar to superstitious traditions, causing so much distortion and corruption to the hadith out of all these practices, throughout different ages and times. Concerning the relators, they used to gain the hearts of the dignitaries among people, extracting from what they owned (of wealth) through disapproved, strange and falsified traditions. Common people were of the habit of gathering around the relator whenever his hadith being supersensible and irrationally amazing, or being a heart-saddening touching one exciting the emotions and extracting tears from eyes, the arts in which those people had good experience, big lies and extremely abundant reports. In regard of the Zanadiqah, they tried their best, by trickery means, to distort and blemish Islam, through foisting in it some abominably ugly and unbelievable traditions resembling the superstitions of the Greeks and Romans, and legends of the Indians and Persians. Their only aim behind these practices was to vilify Ahl al-Sunnah and pervert their narrations through inserting false traditions that no reason could accept or sight could imagine. And concerning the people of ancient akhbar, they intended out of this to confirm and prove the superstitions that were prevalent in

the Pre-Islamic era (Jahiliyyah), with imparting veracity upon them so as to use them in interpretation (tafsir) and alike purposes, the cases for which ample examples are there.

Stage of Committing Hadith to Writing:

After the class of traditionists, among whom were the minor Companions and senior Tabi’un (Followers) – lie the class of Ibn Abbas – hadith continued to be inflicted with symptoms of inadvertence, negligence and foisted suspicions and interpolations. But there might have been some trustworthy narrators who used to report hadith from unreliable ones, till the caliphate time of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz

183 Fearing the bad consequences of people’s additions to hadith and spreading of falsity when correct hadith be rare, as his time witnessed circulation of traditions, in which falsity was made on purpose for no interpretative convenience, like the ones falsified by Ikrimah the slave of Ibn Abbas,
184 and in which the slave (mawla) of Sa’id ibn al-Musayyab was refuted 185 and others, Umar sent a letter to his deputy in administration and judgement on al-Madinah, 186 giving him the order: Collect all the traditions of the Messenger of Allah and write them down, as I am quite afraid about the extinction of knowledge and loss of ‘ulama’.

This was the outset of writing down and collecting of the hadith, as it was never being written in the past 187 ... etc.

We conclude this discussion by referring to a critical defect of riwayah.

A Critical Defect of Narration How Were Their Narrations

Many defects were there for narrating hadith after being forbidden by the Messenger of Allah (S), among which its being not narrated at the time of hearing it, the fact necessitating the narrators to report (hadith) according to

the meaning. The other defect is that they used to practise fraud in narration, in a way that a Companion reporting the Messenger’s hadith from another one without referring to the name of that from whom he reported. This fact was stated by Ibn Qutaybah in his book, Ta’wil mukhtalif al-hadith, 188 when talking about Hurayrah’s narration which he never heard from the Prophet (S), that he used to say: “The Messenger of Allah said kadha (so and so)”, but in fact he heard it (hadith) from a trustworthy (in his view) narrator, relating it then. And the same was practised by Ibn Abbas and other Companions. Such kind of riwayah was called by the scholars of hadith by the term tadlis (fraudulence). In his reference to biography of Abu Hurayrah, al-Dhahabi said: Abu Hurayrah used to practise tadlis, and the tadlis of the Sahabah was so much and faultless.

189

I have exposed these defects and indicated their bad effects in a previous chapter of this book, and in my book Shaykh al-mudirah which I published seperately. But there is a quite dangerous defect I haven’t referred to before, which was disclosed by the eminent Companion Imran ibn Husayn, 190 in his statement in which he swore saying: “By God had I found it necessary, I would have reported from the Messenger of Allah (upon whom be God’s peace and benediction) as much as I willed, for two consecutive days, but I abstained from so doing when noticing a number of the Companions of the Messenger, though having heard what I heard and witnessed what I witnessed, relating traditions whose original wording and expressions be far from what they were narrating. So I feared of falling into imagination and misconception as happened to them. But the fact I want to disclose being that their practice was only out of mistake on their part, and was never done by them on purpose. 191

In his book Shubhat al-tashbih, 192 Ibn al-Jawzi is reported to have said: Al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam heard a man relating a hadith. He waited till the man finished his speech, when he said to him: Did you hear this from the Messenger of Allah? The man replied: Yes!! Al-Zubayr said then: This hadith and its likes are preventing me from relating from the

Prophet! By my life, I heard this hadith from the Messenger of Allah, and I was there when he (S) started to recite it. Then we talked to him about a man from among the people of the Book (Ahl al-Kitab), when you came after the fore part of the hadith was over. When he referred to the man of Ahl al-Kitab, you thought that part to be included in the hadith of the Messenger of Allah!!

Bisr ibn Sa’id is reported to have said: Observe your duty to Allah and take precaution in the hadith. By God, we used to sit with Abu Hurayrah, who would relate to us hadith of the Messenger of Allah (upon whom be God’s peace and benediction) and report (hadith) from Ka’b. Then as soon as he left us, I would hear someone from among us reporting the Messenger’s hadith from Ka’b, with ascribing hadith of Ka’b to the Messenger of Allah. 193

This report was mentioned by Imran ibn Husayn, al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and Bisr ibn Sa’id, and every open-minded thoughtful Muslim is asked to ponder upon and attentively contemplate over it.

As the Companion Imran ibn Husayn swears by God, that if he intended he would report hadith from the Messenger of Allah for two consecutive days, but he abstained since he saw some of the Messenger’s Companions relating traditions whose original be different from what they narrate, only out of error or misconception. So if such be the case of those unintentional among the truthful Companions, how would it be the condition of the intentional ones, and hypocrites and enemies of religion? It is by God, in riwayah, one of the major sins! And whoever trying to enlighten people to this fact would be charged with impiety.

Another defect was described by al-Zubayr, which is: some of the Companions hearing a portion of the hadith from the Prophet, without its fore part, going out then and narrating what he heard to be a complete hadith.

After that comes the turn of Bisr ibn Sa’id, to appeal to people to observe their duty to Allah in (narrating) the hadith, as some of them used to

compose the Messenger’s hadith from Ka’b al-Ahbar and make Ka’b’s hadith as if uttered by the Messenger of Allah. All that and others than it were recorded in the books, and continued to be extant, reported by successors from the ancestors till the Day of Resurrection. And there is neither might nor power but in God.

There is much more discussion and elaboration on taking precaution in narrating the hadith, recorded in our book Shaykh al-mudirah, to which the dear reader can refer.

  1. Al-Imam Ali (A) said: If I heard a hadith from the Messenger of Allah (may God's peace and benediction be upon him and his Progeny), God verily makes me benefit from it as much as He wills, and if anyone relating to me his hadith, I would exact an oath from him, when he swearing I would believe him.

  2. This is verily the correct narration.

  3. To be exact, he accompanied the Prophet for one year and nine months as I verified and stated in my book Shaykh al-mudirah, to which the reader can refer.

  4. Abu Hurayrah died in 59 H.

  5. 'Imran ibn Husayn died in 52 H.

  6. See the discussion of the speech of 'Imran ibn Husayn after this statement.

  7. Like the reports of the Jews and their likes.

  8. He was acknowledged (as a caliph) in 99 H. and died in 101 H.

  9. Ikrimah died in 105 H.

  10. Sa'id died in 94 H.

  11. Abu Bakr died in 120 H.

  12. Ta'rikh adab al-Arab, published in 1329 H., 1911 AD., vol. I, pp. 276-281.

  13. See p. 50.

  14. Siyar a'lam al-nubala', vol. II, pp. 437, 438. Refer also to Shaykh al-mudirah.

  15. Imran ibn Husayn ibn Ubayd ibn Khalaf and his father embraced Islam together with Abu Hurayrah in 7 H. He took part in some battles beside the Prophet. He became governor of Basrah, when Umar delegted him to make its people comprehend their religion, and al-Hasan took oath that they were never visited by anyone better than 'Imran ibn Husayn. He died in 52 H. His Musnad contained 180 traditions, four of which on al-Bukhari, and nine of on Muslim - (Siyar a'lam al-nubala', vol. II, pp. 363-366).

  16. Ibn Qutaybah, Ta'wil mukhtalif al-hadith, pp. 49, 50.

  17. See p. 38.

  18. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', vol. II, p. 436.