Light On the Muhammadan Sunnah Or Defence of the Hadith

Narrating Hadith Through Denotation:

When the idea of narrating the Prophet’s traditions to people struck the minds of some of the Companions, during the occasions necessitating this reporting, though numerous years elapsed since hearing them, with realizing their inability to convey the hadith in its original wording, as uttered by the Prophet, they (Companions) deemed it lawful for themselves to narrate according to the denotation. This method was followed up by those narrators who succeeded them, in a way that the latter taking from the former whatever he was reporting from the Messenger implicitly (through its meaning), conveying it then to another one in accordance with what he could conceive out of it. This being an undisputable fact, common among all that Wukay‘ uttered his famous dictum: “Had not the meaning been expansive, people would have perished.” Sufyan al-Thawri said too: “If I tell you that I am reporting to you (the hadith) as I heard, you should never believe me! As it is verily the denotation (that I got).”

In this way the words remained liable to differences and denotations used to change in accordance to the change of the narrators, among whom – as said by al-Suyuti – were the non-Arabs and half-blooded and others who were other than Arabs, having non-pristine impure Arabic accent!

Even further, al-Bukhari, though being the chief of traditionists, with his book being widely known among the jumhur (Sunnites) who were considering it to be the most authentic book after the Book of Allah, used to narrate by way of meaning! And narrating the hadith through meaning had – certainly – its extreme disadvantage on religion, language and literature, as will be seen later on.

They have, moreover, allowed themselves to receive the hadith even

when being inflicted with intonation, or mispronunciation, or its syntax of wording being disordered by bringing words forward and backward, beside accepting a part of the hadith and discarding the other part. All these points will be clarified in their due places of this book, God-willing.

Hadith of That Who Lied Against Me:

I have exerted much effort in seeking the truth of this hadith, till after extreme toiling, I found that the word “deliberately” was never mentioned in the narrations of eminent Companions. Seemingly this word crept into this hadith through the means of idraj (inclusion), that was common among men of hadith, so as it be taken by the narrators as a reliable basis in whatever they report from others through mistake, or misconception, or error, or misunderstanding. Through this they intended to ward off the sin of lying and evade any interdiction in narrating, as that who errs being not sinful. Or that this word (deliberately) was inserted in the hadith in order that those who were unpurposely composing and fabricating traditions, could justify their practice, to support by it their utterances and gain the trust of people.

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The Compositions:

Throughout its whole history, Islam was never inflicted with a misfortune more dangerous than those composed traditions, the fabrication of which was done by both the enemies and lovers of Islam, for numerous reasons we demonstrated in their places. Beside the Israeliyyat which were disseminated by the Jews, like Ka’b al-Ahbar and Wahb ibn Munabbih and others. Moreover we can refer to the Masihiyyat and other similar fabrications that were foisted into our religion from the un-Islamic religions and creeds, but believed and accepted by Muslims without any investigation, or taking notice of them (their being fabricated).

Abu Hurayrah:

Abu Hurayrah was the most prolific Companion in reporting (traditions) from the Messenger of Allah, though not keeping the Prophet’s company more than a year and nine months, as I verified and recorded in my book Shaykh al-Mudirah, 9 with his narrations containing that abundance of troubles which survived for a long epoch and will be there for ever. Because of these facts I have dedicated for him a separate special exposition in which I fulfilled my duty toward knowledge, seeking only the truth, citing in it whatever be in his benefit and whatever be against him, fearing no one in demonstrating the truth, or hesitating in disclosing knowledge, as truth is verily superior and greater than Abu Hurayrah.

Collecting and Inscribing the Qur’an:

Before giving detailed information about inscription of hadith, I would like to pave the way with a short recapitulation on writing down the Qur’an, in which I stated a complete abridgement of this subject, so as to make clear for people how our ancestors were seeking full accuracy and extreme confirmation when collecting the Qur’an. Thus the Qur’an reached us through a fully authentic chain of narrators (mutawatir), deeming as an infidel whoever denying anything of it. Had the hadith been written down in the same way followed for the Qur’an, through the same means of investigation and accuracy, it would have reached us fully mutawatir too, devoid of that much difference among Muslims that no one could – throughout long ages – avoid.

Inscribing the Hadith:

The other fact I reached through researching, was that the inscription of hadith was only done in the 2nd century (H), i.e. more than a hundred years after the Prophet’s demise. It was not the narrators who motivated to this but the governors who were feeling interdicted of writing the hadith, for fear of perpetrating that which was forbidden by the Prophet (S). In the outset

this inscription was incomplete, going then into different and changeable stages, till coming out in its recent shape, at about the middle of the 3rd Century and beginning of the 4th Hijrah Century. This delay in writing down the hadith had its bad effect and great disadvantage to which we referred in its place of the book.

Origin of Science of Hadith:

Since ‘ilm al-hadith is relevant to our research, we brought about a good abstract of it, to be a guidance for anyone intending to recognize it. We have also stated information about the famous hadith books to demonstrate their reality, with what limitations attached to them and the comments said about them. Then we have referred to the issue of jarh (sarcasm) and ta’dil (modification), moving then to the reliability of the Companions and the scholars’ controversy regarding it, beside their positions in respect of knowledge and virtue. Out of all this we concluded our research to the true school of thought (madhhab), which discards both extravagance (ifrat) and intemperance (tafrit) concerning this reliability.

Scholars’ Stance Toward Hadith:

As previously mentioned, the inscription of hadith has originated only in the 2nd Century, with its books widely-known among Ahl al-Sunnah – of al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi and al-Nasa’i having not come out but only during the 3rd and 4th centuries, containing many unsuccessively-narrated (ahad) ones entailing only surmise. Due to all these facts the Ummah ulama have never accepted such traditions with absolute submission and approval as they did in regard of the Qur’anic verses, never considering them among successive authentic (mutawatir) reports that should be indisputably agreed, but rather they have contradicted most of them with making protracted controversies.

The Mutakallimun and scholars of usul – as they classify the khabar

into mutawatir and ahad, the mutawatir giving the certain knowledge considered only in the doctrines (‘aqa’id), while the ahad giving only the conjecture, that can by no means take the place of truth, – have never found, in their searching, in the hadith books, any khabar to which the rule of tawatur can be applied so as its indication be certain. The scholars of hadith also have never offered to do any research on it since it is beyond the limits of their knowledge, and due to its means of reaching them being through single transmitters (ahad) which being only of conjectural inference upon which it can never be based in case of doctrines. So they have rejected every hadith that was contradictory to the principles on which they concurred, and the regulation they laid down, with the rule agreed by all experts: That the single (ahad) traditions can never be considered reliable in case of doctrines, however strong and authentic be their chains (asanid) and multiple be their means of transmission.

While the imitators of schools of thought, who used to call themselves scholars of fiqh (jurisprudence), were restricted by imitation, that made them neglect hadith books that appeared after the decease of their leaders (imams), never giving them their due of research and study to the extent they did for the books of their shaykhs, or taking them as proofs in their rules and judgements. When one of them coming across any tradition – even that feeble one – that going in line with the school of thought he follows, he would cling to it with rejecting every other one even if being more authentic than the hadith he took for granted. Further he might take and accept part of the hadith and discard the other part! But as regards whatever contradicting his madhhab, he would discard and never accept it even though being among those traditions narrated by the company (jama‘ah). 10 That which prompted them to so doing was the fact that all the jurisprudents’ evidences were based on conjecture only, without the condition of tawatur, and every one is free to accept, without any interdiction, all the traditions of which his heart is quite confident.

When referring to the books of investigators, particularly A‘lam al-muqi‘in of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, we verily come across numerous

traditions numbering one hundred or more, that were disapproved by magnates of fiqh, who never contradicting their creeds for their sake. When asked about their full adherence to whatever their madhahib contained with discarding everything other than them, they would say that: their leaders have accepted only the traditions and verdicts (fatawa) of the ancestors of which their hearts felt assured and confident, and that which they considered correct, and was applied during their lifetimes. Further (they say that) these leaders were, due to their nearness to the Companions and great Followers (Tabi’un), more knowledgeable and profound in fiqh than the authors of the Sunnah books which became so widely known only after the elapse of the early centuries, that were the best according to a hadith reported by them in this respect.

Whereas the leading grammarians have never considered the hadith among the texts they used to quote for confirming their grammatical rules, as they fully realized the fact that the hadith’s correct text had lost its earmarks, and whatever reported from the Prophet was not according to its true wording, with no one certainly knowing the correct form of the traditions uttered by the Prophet. Therefore it was improper to quote the hadith (as an evidence), beside the fact that the traditions disclosed by the Prophet were never accepted by them while they used to quoting the sayings of the Arab rudes who did not know how to urinate!

  1. Like the storyteller, and others.

  2. This book has been published twice, and I am preparing it for the third edition, God-willing.

  3. By al-Jama'ah I mean: Ahmad (Ibn Hanbal), the two Shaykhs, al-Bukhari and Muslim, Abu Dawud, al-Nasa'i and al-Tirmidhi.