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Part II: The Hadith
The Hadith are the collections of the reports of the teachings, deeds and sayings of Muhammad. The term comes from the Arabic meaning “report” “account” or “narrative.”
The Hadith literature is based on oral reports that w0oere in circulation in society after the death of Muhammad. Islamic scholars then compiled these Hadith together in collections.
Hadiths in Islam are the record of the words, actions, and the silent approval, of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Within Islam the authority of Hadith as a source for religious law and moral guidance ranks second only to that of the Qur’an (which Muslims hold to be the word of Allah revealed to his messenger Muhammad). Qur’anic verses (such as 24:54, 33:21) instruct Muslims to emulate Muhammad and obey his judgements, providing scriptural authority for Hadith. While the number of verses pertaining to law in the Qur’an is relatively few, Hadith give direction on everything from details of religious obligations such as Ghusl (washing both the hands up to the wrists; wash the private parts and remove dirt or filth from the body; water should be poured over the head three times so that it flows all over the body; pour water on the right shoulder three times), or Wudu (the Islamic procedure for washing parts of the body using water, typically in preparation for formal prayers [salat], but also before handling and reading the Qur’an) to the correct forms of salutations and the importance of benevolence to slaves. Wuḍūʾ is often translated as “partial ablution,” as opposed to ghusl, or “full ablution.” Thus the “great bulk” of the rules of Shari’a (Islamic law) are derived from Hadith, rather than the Qur’an.
Hadith is the Arabic word for speech, report, account, narrative. Unlike the Qur’an, not all Muslims believe Hadith accounts (or at least not all Hadith accounts) are divine revelation. Hadith were not written down by Muhammad’s followers immediately after his death but several generations later when they were collected, collated and compiled into a great corpus of Islamic literature. Different collections of Hadith would come to differentiate the different branches of the Islamic faith. A small minority of Muslims called Qur’anists reject all Hadith.
Because some Hadith include questionable and even contradictory statements, the authentication of Hadith became a major field of study in Islam. In its classic form a hadith has two parts — the chain of narrators who have transmitted the report (the isnad), and the main text of the report (the matn). Individual hadith are classified by Muslim clerics and jurists into categories such as sahih (“authentic”), hasan (“good”) or da’if (“weak”). However, different groups and different scholars may classify a hadith differently.
Among some scholars of Sunni Islam, the term hadith may include not only the words, advice, practices, etc., of Muhammad, but also those of his companions. In Shi’a Islam, Hadith is the embodiment of the sunnah, the words and actions of the Prophet and his family the Ahl al-Bayt (The Twelve Imams and the Prophet’s daughter, Fatimah).
Definition
In Islamic terminology the term hadith refers to reports of statements or actions of Muhammad, or of his tacit approval or criticism of something said or done in his presence.
Classical hadith specialist Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani says that the intended meaning of hadith in religious tradition is something attributed to Muhammad but that is not found in the Qur’an.
Scholar Patricia Crone includes reports by others than Muhammad in her definition of hadith — “short reports (sometimes just a line or two) recording what an early figure, such as a companion of the prophet (known as sahabah) or Mohammed himself, said or did on a particular occasion, prefixed by a chain of transmitters.” But she adds that “nowadays, hadith almost always means hadith from Mohammed himself.”
Other associated words possess similar meanings including: khabar (news, information) often refers to reports about Muhammad, but sometimes refers to traditions about his companions and their successors from the following generation; conversely, athar (trace, vestige) usually refers to traditions about the companions and successors, though sometimes connotes traditions about Muhammad.
However, according to the Shi’a Islam Ahlul Bayt Digital Library Project, “. . . when there is no clear Qur’anic statement, nor is there a Hadith upon which Muslim schools have agreed . . . Shi’a refer to Ahlul-Bayt for deriving the Sunnah of Prophet” — implying that while Hadith is limited to the “Traditions” of Muhammad, the Shi’a Sunna draws on the sayings, etc., of the Ahlul-Bayt, i.e., the Imams of Shi’a Islam.
Hadith And Qur’an
Importance Of Hadith Complementing The Qur’an
The hadith literature is based on spoken reports in circulation after the death of Muhammad. Unlike the Qur’an, Hadith were not promptly written down during Muhammad’s life or immediately after his death. Hadith were evaluated and gathered into large collections during the 8th and 9th centuries, generations after the death of Muhammad, after the end of the era of the “rightful” Rashidun Caliphate, over 1,000 km (620 mi) from where Muhammad lived. “Many thousands of times” more numerous than Qur’anic verse, Hadith have been described as resembling layers surrounding the “core” of the Islamic belief (the Qur’an). Well-known, widely accepted Hadiths make up the narrow inner layer, uwith Hadith becoming less reliable and accepted with each layer stretching outward.
1Unlike the Qur’an, Hadith are “grounded in the prosaic moments of everyday life.” The reports of behavior to be emulated that were collected include details of ritual religious practice such as the five salat (obligatory Islamic prayers) that are not found in the Qur’an, but also everyday behavior such as table manners, dress, posture. Hadith are also regarded by Muslims as important tools for understanding things mentioned in the Qur’an but not explained, a source for tafsir (commentaries written on the Qur’an).
Some important elements, which are today taken to be a long-held part of Islamic practice and belief are not mentioned in the Qur’an at all, but are derived solely from the hadith. Almost all Muslims, therefore, can be called Hadithists (i.e. believers in hadith), and maintain that the Hadith are a necessary requirement for the true and proper practice of Islam, as it gives Muslims the nuanced details of Islamic practice and belief in areas where the Qur’an is silent. Qur’anists, on the contrary, hold that if the Qur’an is silent on some matter, it is because Allah did not hold its detail to be of consequence; and that some Hadith contradict the Qur’an, evidence that some Hadith are a source of corruption and not a compliment to the Qur’an.
A classical example is salat (the five daily prayers of Islam), which is commanded in the Qur’an, and considered by all Muslims to be an obligatory part of Islamic religious practice — one of the five pillars of Islam. Details of prescribed movements and words of the prayer (known as rakat) and how many times they are to be performed, are found in Hadith, demonstrating to Hadithists that Hadith “validly” fulfill the Qur’anic command of ritual prayer. However, Hadith differ on these details and consequently salat is performed differently by different hadithist Islamic sects. (Qur’anists, for their part, believe if Allah thought the details of salat to be consequence, would have included them in the Qur’an and that the details of salat are a matter between each individual Muslim and Allah, with correctly performed salat depending on a correct intention to perform the prayers, valid however it may be individually performed.)
Comparative Importance Of Hadith
Among most hadithists, the importance of Hadith is secondary to Qur’an given that, at least in theory, an Islamic conflict of laws doctrine holds Qur’anic supremacy above Hadith in developing Islamic jurisprudence. However, a minority of hadithists have historically placed Hadith on a par with the Qur’an. A smaller minority have upheld Hadith in contradiction to the Qur’an, thereby placing Hadith above Qur’an and claiming that contradictory Hadith abrogate the parts of the Qur’an where they conflict.
It has been narrated through a chain of narrators, including Muhammad ibn Isma’il and originating with Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq, that the Prophet Muhammad once addressed his people in Mina saying ‘O people, whatever comes to you in the form of my Hadith, if it agrees with the Holy Book of Allah, it is genuine, but whatever comes to you that does not agree with the book of Allah you must know that I have not said it.’
Components, Schools, Types
The hadith had a profound and controversial influence on tafsir (commentaries of the Qur’an). The earliest commentary of the Qur’an known as Tafsir Ibn Abbas is sometimes attributed to the companion Ibn Abbas.
The hadith were used in forming the basis of Shari’a (the religious law system forming part of the Islamic tradition), and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). The hadith are at the root of why there is no single fiqh system, but rather a collection of parallel systems within Islam.
Much of early Islamic history available today is also based on the hadith, although it has been challenged for its lack of basis in primary source material and the internal contradictions of the secondary material available.
Types
Hadith may be hadith qudsi (sacred hadith) — which some Muslims regard as the words of God (Arabic: Allah) — or hadith sharif (noble hadith), which are Muhammad’s own utterances.
According to as-Sayyid ash-Sharif al-Jurjani, the hadith qudsi differ from the Qur’an in that the former are “expressed in Muhammad’s words,” whereas the latter are the “direct words of Allah.” A hadith qudsi need not be a sahih (sound hadith), but may be da‘if or even mawdu.’
An example of a hadith qudsi is the hadith of Abu Hurairah who said that Muhammad said:
When Allah decreed the Creation He pledged Himself by writing in His book which is laid down with Him: My mercy prevails over My wrath.
In the Shi’a school of thought, there are two fundamental viewpoints of Hadith: The Akhbari view and the Usuli view. The Usuli scholars stress the importance of scientific examination of Hadith using ijtihad (an Islamic legal term referring to independent reasoning or the thorough exertion of a jurist’s mental faculty in finding a solution to a legal question) while the Akhbari scholars take all Hadith from the four books as authentic.
Components
The two major aspects of a hadith are the text of the report (the matn), which contains the actual narrative, and the chain of narrators (the isnad), which documents the route by which the report has been transmitted. The isnad was an effort to document that a hadith had actually come from Muhammad, and Muslim scholars from the eighth century until today have never ceased repeating the mantra “The isnad is part of the religion — if not for the isnad, whoever wanted could say whatever they wanted.” The isnad means literally ‘support’, and it is so named due to the reliance of the hadith specialists upon it in determining the authenticity or weakness of a hadith. The isnad consists of a chronological list of the narrators, each mentioning the one from whom they heard the hadith, until mentioning the originator of the matn along with the matn itself.
The first people to hear hadith were the companions who preserved it and then conveyed it to those after them. Then the generation following them received it, thus conveying it to those after them and so on. So a companion would say, “I heard the Prophet say such and such.” The Follower would then say, “I heard a companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet.'” The one after him would then say, “I heard someone say, ‘I heard a Companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet . . .” and so on.
I have to comment here . . . yes, that’s how it’s done. We used to play a game called “GOSSIP.” It was very similar to this. I tell the person next to me a secret; that person then tells the person to him/her and so on down the line. The secret I told was, “I wish I had a hamburger.” By the time it went full circle it came back as, “He wants to go to Subway for a sandwich.” This is the way one of Islam’s holiest books was compiled.
Different Schools
Different branches of Islam refer to different collections of hadith, though the same incident may be found in hadith in different collections:
In the Sunni branch of Islam, the canonical hadith collections are the six books, of which Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim generally have the highest status. The other books of hadith are Sunan Abu Dawood, Jami` at-Tirmidhi, Al-Sunan al-Sughra and Sunan ibn Majah. However the Malikis, one of the four Sunni “schools of thought” (madhhabs), traditionally reject Sunan ibn Majah and assert the canonical status of Muwatta Imam Malik.
In the Twelver Shi’a branch of Islam, the canonical hadith collections are the Four Books: Kitab al-Kafi, Man la yahduruhu al-Faqih, Tahdhib al-Ahkam, and Al-Istibsar.
In the Ibadi branch of Islam, the main canonical collection is the Tartib al-Musnad. This is an expansion of the earlier Jami Sahih collection, which retains canonical status in its own right.
The Ismaili Shi’a sects use the Daim al-Islam as hadith collections.
The Ahmadiyya sect generally rely on the Sunni canons.
Some minor groups, collectively known as Qur’anists, reject the authority of the hadith collections altogether.
In general, the difference between Shi’a and Sunni collections is that Shi’a give preference to Hadith credited to the Prophet’s family and close associates (Ahl al-Bayt), while Sunnis do not consider family lineage in evaluating Hadith and Sunnah narrated by any of twelve thousand companions of Muhammad.
History, Tradition And Usage
History
Traditions of the life of Muhammad and the early history of Islam were passed down mostly orally for more than a hundred years after Muhammad’s death in 632 AD. Muslim historians say that Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (the third khalifa (caliph) of the Rashidun Caliphate, or third successor of Muhammad, who had formerly been Muhammad’s secretary), is generally believed to urge Muslims to record the hadith just as Muhammad suggested to some of his followers to write down his words and actions.
Uthman’s labors were cut short by his assassination, at the hands of aggrieved soldiers, in 656. No sources survive directly from this period so we are dependent on what later writers tell us about this period.
According to a British historian of the Arab world (Alfred Guillaume), it is “certain” that “several small collections” of hadith were “assembled in Umayyad times.”
In Islamic law, the use of hadith as now understood (hadith of Muhammad with documentation, isnads, etc.) came gradually. According to scholars such as Joseph Schacht, Ignaz Goldziher, and Daniel W. Brown, early schools of Islamic jurisprudence used rulings of the Prophet’s Companions, the rulings of the Caliphs, and practices that “had gained general acceptance among the jurists of that school.” On his deathbed, Caliph Umar instructed Muslims to seek guidance from the Qur’an, the early Muslims (muhajirun) who emigrated to Medina with Muhammad, the Medina residents who welcomed and supported the muhajirun (the ansar), the people of the desert, and the protected communities of Jews and Christians (ahl al-dhimma). But did not mention Muhammad.
The earliest Islamic legal reasonings that have come down to us were “virtually hadith-free,” but gradually, over the course of ninth century AD “the infiltration and incorporation of Prophetic Hadith into Islamic jurisprudence” took place.
It was Abū ʿAbdullāh Muhammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (850-904 AD), known as al-Shafi’i who emphasized the final authority of a hadith of Muhammad, so that even the Qur’an was “to be interpreted in the light of traditions (i.e. hadith), and not vice versa.”. While traditionally the Qur’an is considered above the Sunna in authority, Al-Shafi’i “forcefully argued” that the sunna stands “on equal footing with the Qur’an,” (according to scholar Daniel Brown) for (as Al-Shafi’i put it) “the command of the Prophet is the command of God.”
In 851 the rationalist Mu`tazila school of thought fell from favor in the Abbasid Caliphate. The Mu`tazila, for whom the “judge of truth was human reason,” had clashed with traditionalists who looked to the literal meaning of the Qur’an and hadith for truth. While the Qur’an had been officially compiled and approved, hadiths had not. One result was the number of hadiths began “multiplying in suspiciously direct correlation to their utility” to the quoter of the hadith (Traditionalists quoted hadith warning against listening to human opinion instead of Shari’a; Hanafites quoted a hadith stating that “In my community there will rise a man called Abu Hanifa [the Hanafite founder] who will be its guiding light.” In fact one agreed upon hadith warned that, “There will be forgers, liars who will bring you hadiths which neither you nor your forefathers have heard, Beware of them.” In addition, the number of hadith grew enormously. While Malik ibn Anas had attributed just 1720 statements or deeds to the Muhammad, it was no longer unusual to find people who had collected a hundred times that number of hadith.
Faced with a huge corpus of miscellaneous traditions supported differing views on a variety of controversial matters—some of them flatly contradicting each other—Islamic scholars of the Abbasid sought to authenticate hadith. Scholars had to decide which hadith were to be trusted as authentic and which had been invented for political or theological purposes. To do this, they used a number of techniques which Muslims now call the science of hadith.
Shi’a And Sunni Textual Traditions
Sunni and Shi’a hadith collections differ because scholars from the two traditions ]]]differ as to the reliability of the narrators and transmitters. Narrators who took the side of Abu Bakr and Umar rather than Ali, in the disputes over leadership that followed the death of Muhammad, are seen as unreliable by the Shi’a; narrations sourced to Ali and the family of Muhammad, and to their supporters, are preferred. Sunni scholars put trust in narrators, such as Aisha, whom Shi’a reject. Differences in hadith collections have contributed to differences in worship practices and shari’a law and have hardened the dividing line between the two traditions.
Extent And Nature In The Sunni Tradition
In the Sunni tradition, the number of such texts is somewhere between seven and thirteen thousand, but the number of Hadith is far greater because several isnad sharing the same text are each counted as individual Hadith. If, say, ten companions record a text reporting a single incident in the life of Muhammad, hadith scholars can count this as ten hadiths. So Musnad Ahmad, for example, has over 30,000 hadiths—but this count includes texts that are repeated in order to record slight variations within the text or within the chains of narrations. Identifying the narrators of the various texts, comparing their narrations of the same texts to identify both the soundest reporting of a text and the reporters who are most sound in their reporting occupied experts of hadith throughout the ninth century. In the 3rd century of Islam (from 225/840 to about 275/889), hadith experts composed brief works recording a selection of about two- to five-thousand such texts which they felt to have been most soundly documented or most widely referred to in the Muslim scholarly community. The 4th and 5th century saw these six works being commented on quite widely. This auxiliary literature has contributed to making their study the place of departure for any serious study of hadith. In addition, Bukhari and Muslim in particular, claimed that they were collecting only the soundest of sound hadiths. These later scholars tested their claims and agreed to them, so that today, they are considered the most reliable collections of hadith. Toward the end of the 5th century, Ibn al-Qaisarani formally standardized the Sunni canon into six pivotal works, a delineation which remains to this day.
Over the centuries, several different categories of collections came into existence. Some are more general, like the muṣannaf, the muʿjam, and the jāmiʿ, and some more specific, either characterized by the topics treated, like the sunan (restricted to legal-liturgical traditions), or by its composition, like the arbaʿīniyyāt (collections of forty hadiths).
Extent And Nature In The Shi’a Tradition
Shi’a Muslims hardly ever use the six major hadith collections followed by the Sunni, as they never usually trust many of the Sunni narrators and transmitters. They have their own extensive hadith literature. The best-known hadith collections are The Four Books, which were compiled by three authors who are known as the ‘Three Muhammads.’ The Four Books are: Kitab al-Kafi by Muhammad ibn Ya’qub al-Kulayni al-Razi (940 AD), Man la yahduruhu al-Faqih by Muhammad ibn Babuya and Al-Tahdhib and Al-Istibsar both by Shaykh Muhammad Tusi. Shi’a clerics also make use of extensive collections and commentaries by later authors.
Unlike Sunnis, the majority of Shi’a do not consider any of their hadith collections to be sahih (authentic) in their entirety. Therefore, every individual hadith in a specific collection must be investigated separately to determine its authenticity. However, the Akhbari school does take all hadith from the four books as authentic.
The importance of Hadith in the Shi’a school of thought is well documented. This can be captured by Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin of Muhammad, when he narrated that “Whoever of our Shi’a (followers) knows our Shari’a and takes out the weak of our followers from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge (Hadith) which we (Ahl al-Bayt) have gifted to them, he on the day of judgement will come with a crown on his head. It will shine among the people gathered on the plain of resurrection.” Hassan al-Askari, a descendent of Muhammad, gave support to this narration, stating “Whoever he had taken out in the worldly life from the darkness of ignorance can hold to his light to be taken out of the darkness of the plain of resurrection to the garden (paradise). Then all those whomever he had taught in the worldly life anything of goodness, or had opened from his heart a lock of ignorance or had removed his doubts will come out.”
Regarding the importance of maintaining accuracy in recording Hadith, it has been documented that Muhammad al-Baqir, the great grandson of Muhammad, has said that “Holding back in a doubtful issue is better than entering destruction. Your not narrating a Hadith is better than you narrating a Hadith in which you have not studied thoroughly. On every truth, there is a reality. Above every right thing, there is a light. Whatever agrees with the book of Allah you must take it and whatever disagrees you must leave it alone.” Al-Baqir also emphasized the selfless devotion of Ahl al-Bayt to preserving the traditions of the Islamic Prophet through his conversation with Jabir ibn Abd Allah, an old companion of Muhammad. He (Al-Baqir) said, “Oh Jabir, had we spoken to you from our opinions and desires, we would be counted among those who are destroyed. We speak to you of the Hadith which we treasure from the Messenger of Allah, Oh Allah grant compensation to Muhammad and his family worthy of their services to your cause, just as they treasure their gold and silver.” Further, it has been narrated that Ja’far al-Sadiq, the son of al-Baqir, has said the following regarding hadith: “You must write it down; you will not memorize until you write it down.”
Modern Usage
The mainstream sects consider hadith to be essential supplements to, and clarifications of, the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, as well as for clarifying issues pertaining to Islamic jurisprudence. Ibn al-Salah, a hadith specialist, described the relationship between hadith and other aspect of the religion by saying: “It is the science most pervasive in respect to the other sciences in their various branches, in particular to jurisprudence being the most important of them.” “The intended meaning of ‘other sciences’ here are those pertaining to religion,” explains Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, “Qur’anic exegesis, hadith, and jurisprudence. The science of hadith became the most pervasive due to the need displayed by each of these three sciences. The need hadith has of its science is apparent. As for Qur’anic exegesis, then the preferred manner of explaining the speech of God is by means of what has been accepted as a statement of Muhammad. The one looking to this is in need of distinguishing the acceptable from the unacceptable. Regarding jurisprudence, then the jurist is in need of citing as an evidence the acceptable to the exception of the later, something only possible utilizing the science of hadith.”
Studies
According to Bernard Lewis, “in the early Islamic centuries there could be no better way of promoting a cause, an opinion, or a faction than to cite an appropriate action or utterance of the Prophet.” To fight these forgeries, the elaborate science of hadith studies was devised. Hadith studies use a number of methods of evaluation developed by early Muslim scholars in determining the veracity of reports attributed to Muhammad. This is achieved by analyzing the text of the report, the scale of the report’s transmission, the routes through which the report was transmitted, and the individual narrators involved in its transmission. On the basis of these criteria, various classifications were devised for hadith. The earliest comprehensive work in hadith studies was Abu Muhammad al-Ramahurmuzi’s al-Muhaddith al-Fasil, while another significant work was al-Hakim al-Naysaburi’s Ma‘rifat ‘ulum al-hadith. Ibn al-Salah’s ʻUlum al-hadith is considered the standard classical reference on hadith studies.
Terminology: Admissible And Inadmissible Hadiths
By means of hadith terminology, hadith are categorized as ṣaḥīḥ (sound, authentic), ḍaʿīf (weak), or mawḍūʿ (fabricated). Other classifications used also include: ḥasan (good), which refers to an otherwise ṣaḥīḥ report suffering from minor deficiency, or a weak report strengthened due to numerous other corroborating reports; and munkar (denounced) which is a report that is rejected due to the presence of an unreliable transmitter contradicting another more reliable narrator. Both sahīh and hasan reports are considered acceptable for usage in Islamic legal discourse. Classifications of hadith may also be based upon the scale of transmission. Reports that pass through many reliable transmitters at each point in the isnad up until their collection and transcription are known as mutawātir. These reports are considered the most authoritative as they pass through so many different routes that collusion between all of the transmitters becomes an impossibility. Reports not meeting this standard are known as aahad, and are of several different types.
Biographical Evaluation
Another area of focus in the study of hadith is biographical analysis (‘ilm al-rijāl, lit. “science of people”), in which details about the transmitter are scrutinized. This includes analyzing their date and place of birth; familial connections; teachers and students; religiosity; moral behavior; literary output; their travels; as well as their date of death. Based upon these criteria, the reliability (thiqāt) of the transmitter is assessed. Also determined is whether the individual was actually able to transmit the report, which is deduced from their contemporaneity and geographical proximity with the other transmitters in the chain. Examples of biographical dictionaries include: Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi’s Al-Kamal fi Asma’ al-Rijal, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani’s Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb and al-Dhahabi’s Tadhkirat al-huffaz.
Criticism
The major points of intra-Muslim criticism of the Hadith literature is based in questions regarding its authenticity. However, Muslim criticism of Hadith is also based on theological and philosophical Islamic grounds of argument and critique.
With regard to clarity, Imam Ali al-Ridha has narrated that “In our Hadith there are Mutashabih (unclear ones) like those in al-Qur’an as well as Muhkam (clear ones) like those of al-Qur’an. You must refer the unclear ones to the clear ones.”
Muslim scholars have a long history of questioning the Hadith literature throughout Islamic history. Western academics also became active in the field later on.
RECAP
Hadith are reports of the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad and other early Muslims. After Muhammad’s death, his companions carefully noted all of his teachings and actions, which they studied as the ideal model for Muslim behavior. They recounted these teachings to other Muslims so that the memory of the Prophet’s life and works might influence the community of believers. Hadith (the word may be used as singular or collective) are a central part of Muslim culture. After the Qur’an, they are the most important source of guidance for Muslims.
Providing Clues About Early Islam
As preserved for subsequent generations, hadith take the form of short, unconnected pieces, each of which is preceded by a list of its authoritative transmitters, or those who reported the text. Hadith cover many topics relating to both faith and daily life. In addition to such religious subjects as prayer, purification, and pilgrimage, hadith also address business transactions, inheritance, marriage and divorce, crime, judicial practices, war, hunting, and wine. Using direct language and a conversational style, each chapter of hadith contains anecdotes about how the Prophet dealt with these matters. Muslims use these stories for guidance in dealing with every aspect of their own lives. The hadith are also admired as examples of the richness of Arabic prose from the early Islamic era.
Throughout the history of Islam, the Qur’an and hadith have functioned together to shape the life of the Muslim community worldwide. Hadith provide the basic sources for the biography of the Prophet, filling in details about his personality, family life, and career. Hadith also help Muslims to interpret the Qur’an by explaining the circumstances in which portions of the sacred book were revealed, by supplying the meanings of obscure verses and words, and by providing examples in which the Qur’anic texts were applied to situations in daily life. By the early 800s, hadith had also become officially accepted as one of the sources of Islamic law.
Checking The Sources
Hadith were gathered and transmitted orally for two centuries before being collected in written form and codified. Compilers searched widely for hadith, carefully recording reports exactly as received from recognized experts. They verified the chains of authority and transmission as far back as possible, often to Muhammad himself. These chains of transmission were assessed for their authenticity by examining the number of transmitters, their credibility, and by the continuity of the chains. The nature of the text was also examined. Reports that seemed illogical, exaggerated, or contradictory to the Qur’an were considered suspect.
In the 800s, an authoritative version of hadith was developed. It contained six large collections, which take their titles from the names of their compilers: al-Bukhari (died 870); Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (died 875); Abu Daud al-Sijistani (died 888); Ibn Majah al-Qazwini (died 887); Abu Isa al-Tirmidhi (died 892); and Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Nasai (died 915). Sunni Muslims accept these volumes as the most authoritative texts and also respect the collections of Malik ibn Anas (died 795) and Ahmad ibn Hanbal (died 855).
Shi’i Muslims use these same collections but recogni~ze only some of the Prophet’s companions as valid authorities. They consider hadith from descendants of Muhammad through Ali ibn Abi Talib and Fatimah, as well as those from later imams, to be fully authoritative. From the standpoint of their particular beliefs, Shi’i Muslims consider four hadith collections as particularly important—those of Muhammad ibn Yaqub al-Kulayni (died 940), Muhammad ibn Babuyah al-Qummi (died 991), and two collections of Muhammad al-Tusi (died 1068).
Since the 1990s, hadith scholars have been using computer technology to improve access to the vast amount of material in hadith collections. Specialists have created CD-ROMs that contain some 75,000 hadith, as well as their translations into ten languages.
600,000 Traditions
Collecting hadith became one of the most respected occupations in the early Muslim community. The teacher al-Bukhari reportedly spent more than 16 years traveling from his native Bukhara, in Central Asia, to Egypt. On his long journey he consulted with more than one thousand Arab leaders. After hearing more than 600,000 stories of the Prophet, al-Bukhari selected about 7,000 and recorded them in his book Sahih (which means “true” or “valid”). Although some of the material in Sahih is repetitious, there are still over 2,700 separate hadith that cover such topics as the creation, paradise, hell, ritual purification, and prayer.
Hadith
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Last Update: 04/2021
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