Blue-Rose
11-12-2004, 02:47 PM
HADITH METHODOLOGY
Hadith methodology appears to have grown out of a far superior grade of nutritive intellectual soil than any other system of historical record-keeping of similar age. Hadith were compiled following the life of the prophet out of interest in maintaining a historical record for future generations. The Qur’an contains multiple directives to obey Allah and His messenger, and further counsels believers to follow the example set by Muhammad. Hence, early Muslims felt a powerful religious obligation to preserve as accurate and comprehensive records of their prophet as possible. So devoted were the believers that they learned to make ablution and pray as Muhammad did, eat, drink, and sleep as he did, invoke Allah in like-fashion, brush their teeth, dress, play with children, care for their spouses, respect parents and elders, create order in self, family and society, and, in short, live every detail of life in accordance with his example, where known. Many social and legal precedents were established in Muslim society based upon the example of Muhammad, and for this reason there also arose an impious element who attempted to effect changes to suit personal desires through falsifying hadith. Contrary to what a person might at first expect, the infiltration of false hadith into the body of honest records served to strengthen, rather than weaken, the hadith authentication process. Just as the presence of counterfeit money forces Federal Mints to higher standards of distinctive and verifiably authentic currency, the presence of false hadith forced the Muslims to higher levels of accuracy of hadith analysis. The process of hadith authentication has since become a gold standard of historical record keeping, remaining unrivaled in regard to accuracy and attention to detail.
The process of hadith authentication is so complicated as to resist simplification. However, a brief summary may be offered as follows: individual hadith came to be classified into one of two broad categories -- Sahih (authentic) and Daif (weak). Sahih hadith are further subdivided into four subcategories, all of which are accepted, whereas weak hadith are subdivided into over 30 subcategories, all of which are rejected. In order for a hadith to be accepted the sanad (chain of transmission) must be an unbroken chain of narrators all the way back to the Prophet, each narrator known to have been a just person, having had a strong memory, and having kept accurate records. The text of the hadith itself must not have any internal defects, and must not conflict with other accepted hadith, or with the Qur’an. Each of the above requirements has a multitude of disqualifiers, totaling 25 categories of disqualification. For example, a narrator is disqualified from being considered to have been just if the narrator was crazy, a non-Muslim (and therefore at risk of having attempted to distort or subvert the religion), underage (immature), a person of innovation in religion, a person either known to have lied or even just having been accused of being a liar, one known to have committed great sins or to have persisted in the commission of minor sins, or one who failed to exemplify praiseworthy values. Accuracy is considered nullified by such simple things as a narrator having been absent minded, or having related the same story on two or more occasions using slightly different words, even if they did not change the meaning or message. Records reconstructed after being lost in a natural disaster such as a fire are not accepted, and a narrator found to relate a story which conflicts with a hadith of higher authentication finds his entire collection of hadith disqualified. Even simple internal defects disqualify a hadith. For example, if a teacher relates a hadith, and explains a word without the student understanding that the explanation is not part of the hadith, and the student subsequently relates the hadith complete with the explanation, the student’s narration of the hadith is disqualified. Even such a simple error as transposing two names in the chain of transmission (and certainly losing one name in the chain) is sufficient to bring disqualification, even though the body of the text remains unchanged.
Hadith are further subdivided by the sanad (chain of narration) into Mutawatir and Ahad modes of transmission. A Mutawatir hadith is one related by a great number (a minimum of 4, but usually 10 or more) of narrators for whom it is judged to have been impossible to have united upon a lie, from the beginning to the end of the chain of narrators. Why would it be considered impossible for the narrators to have united upon a lie? For practical reasons such as the narrators never having known each other, having been from different cultures or time periods, or for reason that the narrators were all known to have possessed impeccable character, for any one of whom lying would have been inconsistent with the witness of their lives.
Any hadith passed down through the ages by a chain of narration less that Mutawatir is classified as Ahad, which itself bears three subcategories. A hadith related by a thousand reliable witnesses at each chain of the sanad of narration, with the exception of one stage which has less than four narrators, automatically is demoted to the Ahad class.
The two classifications -- one by authenticity and the other by mode of transmission -- are largely complementary, for a Sahih (authentic) hadith with a Mutawatir chain of transmission certainly deserves more respect than a Daif (weak) hadith with an Ahad sanad. Fabricated hadith, it would seem, have little chance of slipping through either one of these filters of authentication, but to slip past both would border on the impossible.
Hadith methodology appears to have grown out of a far superior grade of nutritive intellectual soil than any other system of historical record-keeping of similar age. Hadith were compiled following the life of the prophet out of interest in maintaining a historical record for future generations. The Qur’an contains multiple directives to obey Allah and His messenger, and further counsels believers to follow the example set by Muhammad. Hence, early Muslims felt a powerful religious obligation to preserve as accurate and comprehensive records of their prophet as possible. So devoted were the believers that they learned to make ablution and pray as Muhammad did, eat, drink, and sleep as he did, invoke Allah in like-fashion, brush their teeth, dress, play with children, care for their spouses, respect parents and elders, create order in self, family and society, and, in short, live every detail of life in accordance with his example, where known. Many social and legal precedents were established in Muslim society based upon the example of Muhammad, and for this reason there also arose an impious element who attempted to effect changes to suit personal desires through falsifying hadith. Contrary to what a person might at first expect, the infiltration of false hadith into the body of honest records served to strengthen, rather than weaken, the hadith authentication process. Just as the presence of counterfeit money forces Federal Mints to higher standards of distinctive and verifiably authentic currency, the presence of false hadith forced the Muslims to higher levels of accuracy of hadith analysis. The process of hadith authentication has since become a gold standard of historical record keeping, remaining unrivaled in regard to accuracy and attention to detail.
The process of hadith authentication is so complicated as to resist simplification. However, a brief summary may be offered as follows: individual hadith came to be classified into one of two broad categories -- Sahih (authentic) and Daif (weak). Sahih hadith are further subdivided into four subcategories, all of which are accepted, whereas weak hadith are subdivided into over 30 subcategories, all of which are rejected. In order for a hadith to be accepted the sanad (chain of transmission) must be an unbroken chain of narrators all the way back to the Prophet, each narrator known to have been a just person, having had a strong memory, and having kept accurate records. The text of the hadith itself must not have any internal defects, and must not conflict with other accepted hadith, or with the Qur’an. Each of the above requirements has a multitude of disqualifiers, totaling 25 categories of disqualification. For example, a narrator is disqualified from being considered to have been just if the narrator was crazy, a non-Muslim (and therefore at risk of having attempted to distort or subvert the religion), underage (immature), a person of innovation in religion, a person either known to have lied or even just having been accused of being a liar, one known to have committed great sins or to have persisted in the commission of minor sins, or one who failed to exemplify praiseworthy values. Accuracy is considered nullified by such simple things as a narrator having been absent minded, or having related the same story on two or more occasions using slightly different words, even if they did not change the meaning or message. Records reconstructed after being lost in a natural disaster such as a fire are not accepted, and a narrator found to relate a story which conflicts with a hadith of higher authentication finds his entire collection of hadith disqualified. Even simple internal defects disqualify a hadith. For example, if a teacher relates a hadith, and explains a word without the student understanding that the explanation is not part of the hadith, and the student subsequently relates the hadith complete with the explanation, the student’s narration of the hadith is disqualified. Even such a simple error as transposing two names in the chain of transmission (and certainly losing one name in the chain) is sufficient to bring disqualification, even though the body of the text remains unchanged.
Hadith are further subdivided by the sanad (chain of narration) into Mutawatir and Ahad modes of transmission. A Mutawatir hadith is one related by a great number (a minimum of 4, but usually 10 or more) of narrators for whom it is judged to have been impossible to have united upon a lie, from the beginning to the end of the chain of narrators. Why would it be considered impossible for the narrators to have united upon a lie? For practical reasons such as the narrators never having known each other, having been from different cultures or time periods, or for reason that the narrators were all known to have possessed impeccable character, for any one of whom lying would have been inconsistent with the witness of their lives.
Any hadith passed down through the ages by a chain of narration less that Mutawatir is classified as Ahad, which itself bears three subcategories. A hadith related by a thousand reliable witnesses at each chain of the sanad of narration, with the exception of one stage which has less than four narrators, automatically is demoted to the Ahad class.
The two classifications -- one by authenticity and the other by mode of transmission -- are largely complementary, for a Sahih (authentic) hadith with a Mutawatir chain of transmission certainly deserves more respect than a Daif (weak) hadith with an Ahad sanad. Fabricated hadith, it would seem, have little chance of slipping through either one of these filters of authentication, but to slip past both would border on the impossible.