A Probe into the History of Hadith

Foreword

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

In order to fully grasp the spirit of Qur'anic injunctions and to thoroughly understand and appreciate the teachings of Islam with a view to translating it into action, one has to take recourse to the holy Qur'an and Sunnah. Unless any Islamic commandment is viewed in the light of both the holy Qur'an and the holy Prophet's Hadith, its real purport and its true spirit and exact fore corners of implementation cannot be truly made known.

The institution of Hadith is a powerful instrument for the interpretation of Islamic injuctions. Barring this instrument any claim to understand and appreciate the Islamic teachings is an empty slogan and unfruitful attempt. History can bear witness for authenticity or otherwise of this claim.

Unfortunately such a powerful instrument has been very ruthlessly dealt with immediately after the demise of the holy Prophet Muhammad (P) by the so called rulers of the Muslim Common­ wealth. For obvious reasons the rulers suppressed and subdued the narrators of Hadith and even persecuted the companions of the holy Prophet for no other reason than the charge of citation and recitation of Hadith. Needless to name any particular ruler or caliph.

However when the tides were turned against such a ruthless practice Mua'wiyah played the most treacherous role by illicitly introducing a large number of concocted and fabricated Hadith invented in the workshop of his stipendiaries and hired narrators of Hadith of course in the garb of reviving the sacred practice of the narration "of Hadith.

Thus heap upon heap of Hadith were piled up by the connivance and active support of Mua'wiyah who in fact tried to establish the so called official Islam contrary to actual precepts by the help of those concocted Hadith. It is an irony off ate that compilers of Hadith relied upon everybody even a Kharjite to take a Hadith from him, but deliberately and conveniently ignored any Hadith received from Imam Ali (P) or Descendants of the holy Prophet or anyone who was their well­ wisher.

Naturally a completely alien Islam was established by the help of Mua 'wiyah and subsequent caliphs. Shias rejected all such concocted Hadith and were branded as Rafazah who with the passage of time with utmost sacrifices and unparalleled strenuous efforts of course through the able guidance of Descendants of the holy Prophet of Islam and their well­ wishers collected and compiled authentic Hadith and paved the way for establishing authentic Islam.

Sayyid Murtadha al-Askari, the renowned scholar on the subject, has very ably made a probe into the History of this delicate institution of Hadith and very ably unveiled the picture of the institution of Hadith in such a superb manner that every line and contour of its countenance becomes distinctly clear.

His scholarly and unbiased analysis of the subject invites the attention of the Muslims all over the world to view the subject dispassionately and try to differentiate and dissociate the authentic from the unauthentic and fabricated Hadith. In this way it will be a great service to Islam to introduce it in its true colours and contours through the help of reliable and authentic Hadith.

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