1.2 The Hadith (Sunnah Or Hadith)

Sunnah or Hadith (the practice and the sayings of Holy Prophet Muhammad) is the second and, undoubtedly, secondary source from which the teachings of Islam are drawn. In its original sense Sunnah indicates the doings and Hadith the sayings of the Holy Prophet; but in effect both cover the same ground and are applicable to his actions, practices, and sayings, Hadith being the narration and record of the Sunnah but containing, in addition, various prophetical and historical elements. There are three kinds of Sunnah. It may be a saying of the Holy Prophet (qaul) which has a bearing on a religious question, an action or a practice of his (fi‘l), or his silent approval of the action or practice of another (taqrir).

We have now to consider to what extent the teachings of Islam, its principles and its laws, can be drawn from this source. Any student of the Holy Qur’an will see that the Holy Book generally deals with the broad principles or essentials of religion, going into details in rare cases. The details were supplied by the Holy Prophet himself, either by showing in his practice how an injunction was to be carried out, or by giving an explanation in words.

The Sunnah or Hadith of the Holy Prophet was not, as is generally supposed, a thing whereof the need may have been felt only after his death, for it was as much needed in his lifetime. The two most important religious institutions of Islam, for instance, are prayer and the compulsory charity of zakat; yet when the injunctions relating to these were delivered — and they are repeatedly met with both in Makkah and Madinah revelations — no details were supplied. “Keep up prayer” (aqimu al-salata) is the Qur’anic injunction and it was the Holy Prophet himself who by his own actions gave the details of the service. “Pay the zakat” (atu al-zakah) is again an injunction frequently repeated in the Holy Qur’an, yet it was the Holy Prophet who gave the rules and regulations for its payment and collection. These are but two examples; but since Islam covered the whole sphere of human activity, hundreds of points had to be explained by the Holy Prophet by his example in action and word, while on the moral side, his was the pattern which every Muslim was required to follow (33:21). The man, therefore, who embraced Islam stood in immediate need of both the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah.

The transmission of the practices and sayings of the Holy Prophet from one person to another, thus became necessary during the Holy Prophet’s lifetime. In fact, the Holy Prophet himself used to give instructions about the transmission of what he taught. Thus when a deputation of the tribe of Rabi‘ah came to wait upon him in the early days of Madinah, he concluded his instructions to them with the words: “Remember this and report it to those whom you have left behind.” Similar were his instructions in another case: “Go back to your people and teach them these things” (Bu. 3:25). There is another report according to which on the occasion of a pilgrimage, the Holy Prophet, after enjoining on the Muslims the duty of holding sacred each other’s life, property and honour, added: ‘He who is present here should carry this message to him who is absent” (Bu. 3:37). Again, there is ample historical evidence that whenever a people embraced Islam, the Holy Prophet used to send them one or more of his missionaries who not only taught them the Holy Qur’an but also explained to them how its injunctions were to be carried out in practice. It is also on record that people came to the Holy Prophet and demanded teachers who could teach them the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah. And the Companions of the Holy Prophet knew full well that his actions and practices were to be followed, should no express direction be met with in the Holy Qur’an. It is related that when Mu‘adh ibn Jabal, on being appointed Governor of Yaman by the Holy Prophet, was asked how he would judge cases, his reply was, “by the Book of Allah.” Asked what he would do if he did not find a direction in the Book of Allah, he replied “by the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah” (AD. 23:11). The Sunnah was, therefore, recognized in the very lifetime of the Holy Prophet as affording guidance in religious matters.

The popular idea in the West that the need for Sunnah was felt, and the force of law given to Hadith, after the death of the Holy Prophet, is falsified by the above facts. Nor was the preservation of what the Holy Prophet did or said an after-thought on the part of the Muslims, for the Companions while translating into practice most of his sayings, endeavoured also to preserve them in memory as well as on paper. The need of the Sunnah, its force as law, and its preservation are all traceable to the lifetime of the Holy Prophet. A special importance was, from the first, attached to his sayings and deeds which were looked upon as a source of guidance by his followers. They were conscious of the fact that these things must be preserved for future generations; hence they not only kept them in their memory but even resorted to pen and ink for their preservation. Abu Hurairah tells us that when one of the Ansar complained to the Holy Prophet of his inability to remember what he heard from him, the Holy Prophet’s reply was that he should seek the help of his right hand (referring to the use of pen). Another well-known report is from ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Amr: “I used to write everything that I heard from the Holy Prophet, intending to commit it to memory. (On some people taking objection to this) I spoke about it to the Holy Prophet who said: “Write down, for I only speak the truth”. Yet again there is another report from Abu Hurairah: “None of the Companions preserved more hadith than myself, but ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Amr is an exception, for he used to write and I did not”. Anas ibn Malik states that Abu Bakr wrote down for him the laws regarding alms. ‘Ali had also a saying of the Holy Prophet with him in writing. In the year of the conquest of Makkah, the Holy Prophet delivered a sermon on the occasion of a man being killed by way of retaliation for some old grievance. When the sermon was over, one from among the people of Yaman came forward and requested him to have it written down for him, and the Holy Prophet gave orders to that effect. These reports show that while generally Hadith was committed to memory, it was occasionally, when there was need for it, written down. The last-mentioned incident affords the clearest testimony that, whatever the Companions heard from the Holy Prophet, they tried to keep in their memory, for how else could an order be given for the writing of a sermon which had been delivered orally?

It is, however, a fact that the sayings of the Holy Prophet were not generally written, and memory was the chief means of their preservation. The Holy Prophet sometimes did object to the writing down of his sayings. Abu Hurairah is reported to have said: “The Holy Prophet of God came to us while we were writing hadith and said: What is this that you are writing? We said: Sayings which we hear from thee. He said: What! a book other than the Book of God?” Now the disapproval in this case clearly shows fear lest his sayings be mixed up with the revealed word of the Holy Qur’an, though there was nothing essentially wrong in writing these down nor did the Holy Prophet ever forbid this being done. On the other hand, as late as the conquest of Makkah, we find him giving orders himself for the writing down of a certain saying at the request of a hearer. He also wrote letters, and treaties were put down in writing too, which shows that he never meant that the writing of anything besides the Holy Qur’an was illegal. What he feared as the report shows, was that if his sayings were written down generally like the Holy Qur’an, the two might get mixed up, and the purity of the text of the Holy Qur’an might be affected.

Memory was by no means an unreliable mode for the preservation of Hadith, for the Holy Qur’an itself was safely preserved in the memory of the Companions of the Holy Prophet in addition to being committed to writing. In fact, had the Holy Qur’an been simply preserved in writing, it could not have been handed down intact to future generations. The aid of memory was invoked to make the purity of the Text doubly sure. The Arab had a wonderfully retentive memory in which he had to store up his knowledge of countless things. It was in this safe custody that all the poetry of the pre-Islamic days had been kept alive and intact. Indeed, before Islam, writing was but rarely resorted to, and memory was chiefly relied upon in all important matters. Hundreds and even thousands of verses could be recited from memory by one man, and the reciters would also remember the names of the persons through whom those verses had been transmitted to them. Asma‘i, a later transmitter of hadith, says that he learned twelve thousand verses by heart before he reached majority; of Abu Dzamdzam, Asma‘i says that he recited verses from a hundred poets in a single sitting; Sha‘bi says that he knew so many verses by heart that he could continue repeating them for a month; and these verses were the basis of the Arabic vocabulary and even of Arabic grammar. Among the Companions of the Holy Prophet were many who knew by heart thousands of the verses of pre-Islamic poetry, and of these one was ‘A’ishah, the Holy Prophet’s wife. The famous Bukhari trusted to memory alone for the retention of as many as six hundred thousand sayings and many students corrected their manuscripts by comparing them with what he had only retained in his memory.

The first steps for the preservation of Hadith were thus taken in the lifetime of the Holy Prophet, but all his followers were not equally interested in the matter, nor had all equal chances of being so. Everyone had to work for his living, while on most of them the defence of the Muslim community against overwhelming odds had placed an additional burden. There was, however, a party of students called the Ashab al-Suffah who lived in the mosque itself, and who were specially equipped for the teaching of religion to the tribes outside Madinah. Some of these would go to the market and do a little work to earn livelihood; others would not care to do even that. Of this little band, the most famous was Abu Hurairah, who would remain in the Holy Prophet’s company at all costs, and store up in his memory everything which the Holy Prophet said or did. His efforts were, from the first, directed towards the preservation of Hadith. He himself is reported to have said once: “You say, Abu Hurairah is profuse in narrating hadith from the Holy Prophet; and you say, How is it that the Refugees (Muhajirin) and the Helpers (Ansar) do not narrate hadith from the Holy Prophet like Abu Hurairah? The truth is that our brethren from among the Refugees were occupied in transacting business in the market and I used to remain with the Holy Prophet having filled my belly; so I was present when they were absent and I remembered what they forgot; and our brethren from among the Helpers were occupied with work on their lands, and I was a poor man from among the poor inmates of the Suffa, so I retained what they forgot” (Bu. 34:1). Another Companion, Talha, son of ‘Ubaid Allah, is reported to have said of Abu Hurairah: “There is no doubt that he heard from the Holy Prophet what we did not hear. The reason was that he was a poor man who possessed nothing and was, therefore, a guest of the Holy Prophet.” Here is another report from Muhammad ibn ‘Amara: “He sat in a company of the older Companions of the Holy Prophet in which there were over ten men. Abu Hurairah began to relate a certain saying of the Holy Prophet, which some of them did not know, so they questioned him over and over again until they were satisfied. Again, he related to them a saying in the same manner and he did this over and over again, and I was convinced that Abu Hurairah had the best memory.” According to another report, people used to say in the lifetime of the Holy Prophet that Abu Hurairah narrated many sayings of the Holy Prophet. So Abu Hurairah enquired of one of them as to which chapters the Holy Prophet had recited in his night prayers the day before. The man being unable to answer the question, Abu Hurairah himself named the chapters which shows not only that he had a wonderful memory but also that he tried his utmost to remember everything.

‘A’ishah, the Holy Prophet’s wife, was also one of those who sought to preserve the practice of the Holy Prophet. She too had a marvellous memory, and was, in addition, gifted with a clear intellect, by virtue of which she refused to accept anything which she did not understand. There is a report about her, according to which “she never heard anything she did not recognize but she questioned about it again and again”. In other words, she accepted nothing, even from the lips of the Holy Prophet himself, until she was fully satisfied as to its meaning. ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Umar and ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abbas are two other Companions who were specially engaged in the work of preserving and transmitting the knowledge of the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith as also was ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Amr who used to write down the sayings of the Holy Prophet. And in addition to these, every Companion did his utmost to preserve such of his words and deeds as came to his knowledge. ‘Umar who resided about three miles from Madinah, had made arrangements with a neighbour so that each remained in the company of the Holy Prophet on alternate days, in order to report to the other what happened in his absence. And, most important of all, the Holy Prophet had repeatedly laid an obligation on everyone of his followers to transmit his words to others: “Let him who is present deliver to him who is absent” is the concluding sentence of many of his most important utterances all of which afford a clear proof that the work of preservation and transmission of the practice and sayings of the Holy Prophet had begun in his lifetime. This was the first stage in the collection of the Hadith.

With the Holy Prophet’s death, the work of the collection of Hadith entered a second stage. Every case that came up for decision had now to be referred either to the Holy Qur’an or to some judgment or saying of the Holy Prophet, which judgments or sayings, therefore, obtained a wide reputation. There are numerous cases on record in which a right was claimed on the basis of a judgement or saying of the Holy Prophet, and evidence was demanded as to the authenticity of that saying. Thus there was a double process at work; not only was the trustworthiness of the particular hadith established beyond all doubt, it also obtained a wide circulation. Thus the multiple needs of a rapidly growing and widely-spreading community, whose necessities had increased tenfold on account of its onward march to civilization, brought into prominence a large number of hadith, knowledge of which had been limited to one or a few only, with the seal of confirmation on their truth, because at that time direct evidence of that truth was available.

This was not the only factor that gave an impetus to a dissemination of the knowledge of Hadith. The influx into Islam of large numbers of people who had never seen the Holy Prophet himself, but who could behold for themselves the astounding transformation brought about by him, and to whom, therefore, his memory was sacred, in the highest degree, formed in itself an important factor in the general eagerness to discover everything which the great man had said or done. It was natural that each new convert should be anxious to know all there was to know about the great Teacher who had infused a new life into a dead world. Everyone who had seen him would thus become a source of knowledge for the later converts and since the incidents were fresh in the memories of the Companions they would be conveyed with fair accuracy to the new generation.

It must be remembered that the wonderful success which Islam achieved within so short a time, and the rapidity with which the reputation of its Holy Prophet advanced, were the very reasons which led to the preservation of the actual facts concerning him. The personality of the Holy Prophet and his religion assumed an unparalleled importance in Arabia within twenty years of the day on which he began the work of a reformer, and within ten years of his death Islam spread to many countries beyond the borders of Arabia. Everything relating to the Holy Prophet, therefore, became a matter of discussion among Arabs and non-Arabs, friends and foes. Had he remained in oblivion for a century or so, and then risen to fame, probably much of what he had said or done would have been lost to the world, and the exaggerations of a later generation, and not facts, would have been handed down to posterity. But with him the case was quite different. From the humblest position he had risen to the highest eminence to which man can rise, and that in less than a quarter of a century, and, therefore, there was not an incident of his life but had become public property before it could be forgotten.

There was another factor of the utmost importance which gave impetus to the knowledge of Hadith at this stage. To the Companions of the Holy Prophet, the religion which he had brought was so priceless that they valued it above all else in the world. For its sake they had given up their business, their homes and their kinsfolk; to defend it they had laid down their lives. To carry this blessing, this greatest gift of God, to other people had become the supreme object of their lives; hence a dissemination of its knowledge was their first and foremost concern. In addition to this, the great Master had laid on those who were present, on those who saw him and listened to his words, the duty of carrying what they saw and heard, to those who were absent, to those who came after him. “Let him who is present carry this to him who is absent”, was the phrase which on account of the frequency of its repetition rang continually in their ears. And they were faithful to the great charge which was laid on them. They travelled eastward and westward, northward and southward, and in whichever direction they went, and whichever country they reached, they carried with them the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith. Everyone of them who had but the knowledge of one incident relating to the Holy Prophet’s life deemed it his duty to deliver it to another. And individuals like ‘A’ishah, Abu Hurairah, ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abbas, ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Umar, ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Amr, Anas ibn Malik and many others who had made the preservation of the Sayings and Practice of the Holy Prophet the first object of their lives, became, as it were, centres to whom people resorted from different quarters of the kingdom of Islam to gain knowledge of Islam and its Holy Prophet. Their places of residence became in fact so many colleges for the dissemination of the knowledge of Hadith. Abu Hurairah alone had eight hundred disciples. ‘A’ishah’s house, too, was resorted to by hundreds of ardent pupils. The reputation of ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abbas was equally great and, notwithstanding his youth, he was one of the foremost among the counsellors of ‘Umar, on account of his knowledge of the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith. The zeal of the new generation for the acquisition of knowledge was so great that students were wont to travel from one place to another to complete their religious studies, and some would journey long distances to obtain first-hand information about one hadith only.

With the passing of the generation that had seen and heard the Holy Prophet, the work of the collection of Hadith entered upon a third stage. There were no more reports to be investigated from different persons, and the whole Hadith was now the property of teachers who taught at various centres, and, therefore, in the third stage it could all be learnt by repairing to these centres instead of enquiring about it from individuals. At this stage, moreover, the writing of Hadith became more common. The large number of students at the different centres, having abundance of material to digest, to which was also added the further task of remembering the names of the transmitters, sought aid from the pen, so that the work might be easier. By this time the practice of writing had become general and writing material abundant. Moreover, there was now no fear of the Hadith being confused with the Holy Qur’an. It must, however, be remembered that at this stage the hadith were written merely as an aid to memory; the mere fact that a report was found among the manuscripts of a person was no evidence of its authenticity, which could be established only by tracing it to a reliable transmitter. ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, commonly known as ‘Umar II, the Umayyad Caliph, who ruled towards the close of the first century of Hijrah, was the first man to issue definite orders to the effect that written collections should be made. He is reported to have written to Abu Bakr ibn Hazm: “See whatever saying of the Holy Prophet can be found, and write it down, for I fear the loss of knowledge and the disappearance of the learned men; and do not accept anything but the Hadith of the Holy Prophet; and people should make knowledge public and should sit in companies, so that he who does not know should come to know, for knowledge does not disappear until it is concealed from the public.” The importance of this incident lies in the fact that the Caliph himself took an interest in the collection of Hadith, the Umayyads generally having stood aloof from the great work up to this time. Abu Bakr ibn Hazm was the Caliph’s Governor at Madinah, and there is evidence that similar letters were written to other centres. But ‘Umar II died after a short reign of two and half years, and his successor does not seem to have been interested in the matter. Even if a collection had been made in pursuance of these orders, which is very doubtful, no copy has reached us. But the work was taken up independently of government patronage in the next century, which marks the commencement of the fourth stage in the collection of Hadith.

Before the middle of the second century, Hadith started to assume a more permanent shape, and written collections began to see the light of day. Hundreds of the students were engaged in the work of learning Hadith in the various centres, but with every new teacher and student the work of preserving the name of the transmitter along with the text was becoming more difficult. Written collections had thus become indispensable. The first known work on the subject is that of Imam ‘Abd al-Malik ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Juraij, commonly known as Ibn Juraij. According to some, however, Sa‘id ibn Abi ‘Aruba or Rabi‘ ibn Suhaib has precedence in this matter. All these authors died about the middle of the second century. Ibn Juraij lived at Makkah, while others who wrote books on Hadith in the second century are Imam Malik ibn Anas and Sufyan ibn ‘Uyaina in Madinah, ‘Abd Allah ibn Wahb in Egypt, Ma‘mar and ‘Abd al-Razzaq in Yaman, Sufyan Thauri and Muhammad ibn Fudzail in Kufa, Hammad ibn Salmah and Rauh ibn ‘Ubada in Basra, Hushaim ibn Wasit and ‘Abd Allah ibn Mubarak in Khurasan, by far the most important of the collections of these authors is the Muwatta of Imam Malik. All these books, however, were far from being exhaustive. In the first place, the object of their compilation was simply the collection of such reports as touched on the daily life of the Muslims. Reports relating to a large number of topics, such as faith, knowledge, the life of the Holy Prophet, wars, comments on the Holy Qur’an, were outside their scope. And secondly, every author collected only such reports as were taught at the centre where he worked. Even the Muwatta contains only the hadith which came through the people of Hijaz. All these works were, therefore, incomplete, but they were a great advance on oral transmission in the work of collecting Hadith.

This great work was brought to completion in the third century of Hijrah. It was then that two kinds of collections were made, Musnad (the earlier type) and Jami‘ or Musannaf. Musnad is derived from sanad meaning authority, and the isnad of a hadith meant the tracing of it back through various transmitters to the Companion of the Holy Prophet on whose authority it rested. The collections known as Musnads were arranged, not according to the subject-matter of the hadith, but under the name of the Companion on whose final authority the report rested. The most important of the works of this class is the Musnad of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, which contains about thirty thousand reports. It is to the Jami or the Musannaf that the honour is due of bringing the knowledge of Hadith to perfection. The Jami‘ not only arranges reports according to their subject-matter but is also of a more critical tone. Six books are recognized generally under the heading, being the collections made by Muhammad ibn Isma‘il, commonly known as Bukhari (d. 256 A.H.), Muslim (d. 261 A.H.), Abu Dawud (d. 275 A.H.), Tirmidzi (d. 279 A.H.), Ibn Majah (d. 283 A.H.) and Nasa’i (d. 303 A.H). These books classified reports under various subjects and thus made Hadith easy for reference, not only for lawyers and judges but also for students and research scholars thus giving a further impetus to the study of Hadith.

Among the six collections mentioned above, Bukhari holds the first place in several respects while Muslim comes second. In the first place, Bukhari has the unquestioned distinction of being first, all the others modelling their writings on his. Secondly, he is the most critical of all. He did not accept any report unless all its transmitters were reliable and until there was proof that the later transmitter had actually met the first; the mere fact that the two were contemporaries (which is the test adopted by Muslim) did not satisfy him. Thirdly, in his acumen (Fiqahah) he surpasses all. Fourthly, he heads the more important of his chapters with text from the Holy Qur’an, and thus shows that Hadith is only an explanation of the Holy Qur’an, and as such a secondary source of the teaching of Islam.

European critics are generally under the impression that when the authors of the Musannafat set to work, there was such a vast mass of spurious hadith that the collectors did not credit more than one or two per cent of the prevailing mass as being genuine, and that these were taken to be genuine on the slender authority of the reliability of transmitters without any regard to the subject-matter. The impression that the vast mass of reports taught at different centres in the third century was fabricated is based on a misconception. It is true that Bukhari took cognizance of 600,000 reports and knew some 200,000 of these by heart. It is also a fact that his book contains no more than 9,000 hadith. But it is not true that he found the other 591,000 reports to be false or fabricated. It must be clearly understood that those who were engaged in the dissemination and study of Hadith looked upon every report as a different hadith when even a single transmitter was changed. Let us, for instance, take a hadith for which the original authority is Abu Hurairah. Now Abu Hurairah had about 800 disciples and the same hadith may have been reported by, say, ten of his disciples with or without any variation. Each of these reports would, according to the collectors, form a separate hadith. Again, suppose each of the transmitters of Abu Hurairah’s hadith had two reporters, the same hadith would then be counted as twenty different reports. The number would thus go on increasing as the number of reporters increased. At the time when Bukhari applied himself to Hadith in the first decade of the third century of Hijrah, there were schools of Hadith at different centres, and hundreds of students learned and transmitted reports to others. In a chain of ordinarily four or five transmitters, consider the number of reports that would arise from the same Hadith on account of the variation of transmitters, and it is easy to understand that 600,000 did not mean so many reports relating to various subjects, but so many reports coming through different transmitters, many of them referring to the same incident or conveying the same subject-matter with or without variation of words. That this was the method of Bukhari’s counting of reports is clear from his book, the Sahih Bukhari, which, with the change of even one transmitter in a chain of, say, four or five, considers the report to be distinct. What is called repetition in Bukhari is due to this circumstance.

European criticism has often mixed up Hadith with the reports met with in the biographies of the Holy Prophet and in the commentaries on the Holy Qur’an. No Muslim scholar has ever attached the same value to the biographical reports as to hadith narrated in the above-mentioned collections. On the other hand, all Muslim critics recognize that the biographers never made much effort to sift truth from error. Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal sums up the Muslim point of view as regards the trustworthiness of the biographical reports when he declares that the biographies “are not based on any principle,” and Hafiz Zain al-Din ‘Iraqi says that “they contain what is true and what is false.” In fact, much of the adverse European criticism of Hadith would have been more suitably levelled at the biographical reports; and the same is true of the reports met with in the commentaries, which are still more unreliable. Many careless commentators confounded Hadith with Jewish and Christian stories, and made free use of the latter as if they were so many reports. Speaking of the commentaries, Ibn Khaldun says: “Their books and their reports contain what is bad and what is good and what may be accepted and what should be rejected, and the reason is that the Arabs were an ignorant race without literature and without knowledge, and desert life and ignorance were their chief characteristics, and whenever they desired, as mortals do desire, to obtain knowledge of the cause of existence and the origin of creation and the mysteries of the universe, they turned for information to the followers of the Book, the Jews and such of the Christians as practised their faith. But these people of the Book were like themselves, and their knowledge of these things went no further than the knowledge of the ignorant masses … So when these people embraced Islam, they retained their stories which had no connection with the commandments of the Islamic law, such as the stories of the origin of creation, and things relating to the future and the wars, etc. These people were like Ka‘b Ahbar, Wahb ibn Munabbah, ‘Abd Allah ibn Salam and others. Commentaries on the Holy Qur’an were soon filled with these stories of theirs. And in such matters, the reports do not go beyond them, and as these do not deal with commandments, so their correctness is not sought after to the extent of acting upon them, and the commentators take them rather carelessly, and they have thus filled up their commentaries with them.”

Shah Wali Allah writes in a similar strain: “It is necessary to know that most of the Israelite stories that have found their way into the commentaries and histories are copied from the stories of the Jews and the Christians, and no commandment or belief can be based upon them.”

In fact, in some of the commentaries, the reports cited do not make sense. Even the commentary of Ibn Jarir, with all its value as a literary production, cannot be relied upon. Ibn Kathir’s commentary is, however, an exception, as it contains chiefly hadith taken from reliable collections.

Yet another thing to beware of is the mixing up of Hadith with stories. As in every other nation, there had grown up among the Muslims a class of fable-mongers whose business it was to tickle the fancies of the masses by false stories. These were either drawn from the Jews, Christians and Persians, with whom the Muslims came in contact, or they were simply concocted. The professional story-tellers seem to have sprung up early, for as Razi says, the Caliph ‘Ali ordered that whosoever should relate the story of David as the story-tellers relate it (reference being to the story taken from the Bible as to David having committed adultery with Uriah’s wife), should be given 160 stripes, that being double the punishment of the ordinary slanderer. This shows that the story-teller had begun his work even at that early date, but then it must be remembered that he was never confounded with the reporter of Hadith, even by the ignorant masses. His vocation, being of a lower status, was necessarily quite distinct. Hadith was regularly taught in schools in different centres, as already known, and its teachers were in the first instance well-known Companions of the Holy Prophet, such as Abu Hurairah, Ibn ‘Umar, and ‘A’ishah, whose place was later taken by equally well-known masters of Hadith from among the successors of the Companions (Tabi‘in). No story-teller, whose sphere of action was limited to some street corner, where he might attract the attention of passers-by, and perhaps gather round him a few loiterers, could aspire even to approach a school of Hadith. As a writer says: “They collect a great crowd of people round them: One Qass stations himself at one end of the street and narrates hadith about the merits of ‘Ali, while his fellow stands at the other end of the street exalting the virtues of Abu Bakr. Thus they secure the pence of the Nasibi as well as the Shi‘i, and divide their gains equally afterwards.” It is difficult to believe that such story-mongers could be mistaken for reporters of Hadith by any sensible person; yet scholars like Sir William Muir and other famous Orientalists often try to confound the two and speak of these stories as though they had some connection with Hadith. Even if it be true that some of them have found a place in certain commentaries, whose authors had a love for the curious and gave but scant heed to the sifting of truth from error, the collectors of Hadith (Muhaddithin) would never dream of accepting a story from such a source. They knew the story-tellers and their absurdities well enough, and indeed so scrupulous were they in making their selections that they would not accept a report if one of the reporters was known ever to have told a lie or fabricated a report in a single instance. This much every European critic of Hadith must needs admit; how then could such people accept the puerile inventions of the street story-teller who followed his vocation merely for the few coins it might bring? That there are some incredible stories even in the collections of Hadith is true, but they are so rare that not the least discredit can justly be thrown on the collections themselves on that account, the reason for their existence being something quite different.

Among European critics, almost without exception, there is a prevalent idea that the Muslim critics of Hadith have never gone beyond the transmission line, and that the subject-matter has been left quite untouched. Suggestions have also been made that even the Companions of the Holy Prophet were at times so unscrupulous as to fabricate hadith, while it should be common knowledge that the strictest Muslim critics of the transmitters are all agreed that when a report is traced back to a Companion, its authenticity is placed beyond all question. A European writer makes the suggestion that Abu Hurairah was in the habit of fabricating hadith: “A most significant recognition within hadith itself of the untrustworthiness of guarantors is to be found in Bukhari. Ibn ‘Umar reports that Muhammad ordered all dogs to be killed save sheep-dogs and hounds. Abu Hurairah added the word au zar‘in; whereupon Ibn ‘Umar makes the remark, Abu Hurairah owned cultivated land. A better illustration of the underlying motive of some hadith can hardly be found.”

In the above quotation zar‘in means “cultivated land”, and the suggestion is that Abu Hurairah added this word for personal motives. In the first place, Abu Hurairah is not alone in reporting that dogs may be kept for hunting as well as for keeping watch over sheep or tillage (zar‘). Bukhari reports a hadith from Sufyan ibn Abu Zubair in the following words: “I heard the Messenger of Allah say: Whoever keeps a dog which does not serve him in keeping watch over cultivated land or goats, one qirat of his reward is diminished every day. The man who reported from him said, Hast thou heard this from the Messenger of Allah? He said, Yea, by the Lord of this Mosque.” Now this report clearly mentions watch dogs kept for sheep as well as those kept for tillage, but not dogs kept for hunting, which the Holy Qur’an explicitly allows. Abu Hurairah’s report in the same chapter, preceding that cited above, expressly mentions all these kinds, watch dogs kept for sheep or tillage and dogs for hunting, which only shows that he had the more retentive memory. And as for Ibn ‘Umar’s remark, there is not the least evidence that it contained any insinuation against Abu Hurairah’s integrity. It may be just an explanatory remark, or a suggestion that the latter took care to preserve that part of the saying, because he himself had to keep watch dogs for his cultivated land. With all the mistakes that Abu Hurairah may have made in reporting so many hadith, no critic has ever yet questioned his integrity; in fact, critics are unanimous in maintaining that no Companion of the Holy Prophet ever told a lie. Thus, Ibn Hajar says: “The Ahl Sunnah are unanimous that all (the Companions) are truthful (‘adul).”

Further, the same European writer asserts that independent thinkers in the second and third century not only questioned the authority of Hadith altogether but derided the very system: “There was still a large circle outside the orthodox thinkers who rejected the whole system of hadith. They were not concerned to adopt those which happened to fit in with the views and doctrines of the doctors, or even with those which might fairly be held to support their own view of life. So far from being impressed by the earnestness of the traditionists who scrupulously examined the isnad, or by the halo of sanctity which had gathered round the early guarantors of traditions, the independent thinkers of the second and third centuries openly mocked and derided the system as a whole and the persons and matters named therein.”

And, as evidence in support of these sweeping statements, he adds: “Some of the most flagrant examples of these lampoons will be found in the Book of Songs, where indecent stories are cast into the form in which Tradition was customarily handed down to posterity.”

Thus the “independent thinkers” who rejected the system of Hadith and “openly mocked and derided the system as a whole” are only the lampooners mentioned in the concluding portion of the paragraph. The Aghani, the Book of Songs, which is referred to as if it were a collection of lampoons directed against Hadith, is an important collection of ballads by the famous Arabian historian, Abu al-Faraj ‘Ali ibn Husain, commonly known as Isfahani (born in 284 A.H.). One is at a loss to understand why the learned Western author should look upon it as an attempt to mock and deride the system of Hadith. There may be some indecent stories connected with these songs, but the presence of such stories does not alter the essential character of the work which is in the nature of an historical collection. Neither in the book itself nor in any earlier writing is there a word to show that the collection was made in a spirit of mockery; and as to the fact that with the songs collected are given the names of those through whom the songs are handed down, that was the common method adopted in all historical writings and collections of the time, as may be readily seen by reference to the historical writings of Ibn Sa‘d, or Ibn Jarir; and it was chosen not to insult the method of transmission of Hadith but simply on account of its historical value. Guillaume, the European critic, has also mentioned the names of two great Muslim thinkers, Ibn Qutaibah and Ibn Khaldun, in this connection, but they neither rejected the Hadith system as a whole nor ever mocked or derided that system or the persons and matters mentioned therein. Ibn Qutaibah rather defended the Holy Qur’an and Hadith against scepticism, and Guillaume has himself quoted with approval Dr. Nicholson’s remarks that “every impartial student will admit the justice of Ibn Qutaybah’s claim that no religion has such historical attestations as Islam.” The Arabic word asnad used in the original, and translated as historical attestations, is the plural of sanad which means an authority, and refers especially to the reporters on whose authority Hadith is accepted. Thus Ibn Qutaibah claims for Hadith a higher authority than that claimed in any other historical work of the time, and the claim is admitted by both Nicholson and Guillaume. In the Encyclopaedia of Islam, it is plainly stated that Ibn Qutaibah “defended the Holy Qur’an and Hadith against the attacks of philosophic scepticism.” Ibn Khaldun, too, never attacked Hadith itself, and his strictures are applicable only to stories which have generally been rejected by the collectors.

There is no doubt that the collectors of Hadith attached the utmost importance to the trustworthiness of the narrators. As Guillaume says: “Inquiries were made as to the character of the guarantors, whether they were morally and religiously satisfactory, whether they were tainted with heretical doctrines, whether they had a reputation for truthfulness, and had the ability to transmit what they had themselves heard. Finally, it was necessary that they should be competent witnesses whose testimony would be accepted in a court of civil law.” More than this, they tried their best to find out whether each report was actually traceable to the Holy Prophet through the various necessary stages. Even the Companions did not accept any hadith which was brought to their notice until they were fully satisfied that it came from the Holy Prophet. But the collectors went beyond the narrators, and they had rules of criticism which were applied to the subject matter. In judging whether a certain report was spurious or genuine, the collectors not only made a thorough investigation of the trustworthiness of the transmitters but also applied other rules of criticism which are in no way inferior to modern methods. Shah ‘Abd al ‘Aziz has summarized these rules in Ujalah Nafi‘ah, and according to them a report was not accepted under any of the following circumstances:

If it was opposed to recognized historical facts.

If the reporter was a Shi‘ah and the hadith was of the nature of an accusation against the Companions, or if the reporter was a Khariji and the report was of the nature of an accusation against a member of the Holy Prophet’s family. If, however, such a report was corroborated by independent testimony, it was accepted.

If it was of such a nature that to know it and act upon it was incumbent upon all, and it was reported by a single man.

If the time and the circumstances of its narration contained evidence of its forgery.

If it was against reason or against the plain teachings of Islam.

If it mentioned an incident which, had it happened, would have been known to and reported by large numbers, while as a matter of fact that incident was not reported by any one except the particular reporter.

If its subject-matter or words were unsound or incorrect; for instance, the words were not in accordance with Arabic idiom, or the subject-matter was unbecoming the Holy Prophet’s dignity.

If it contained threats of heavy punishment for ordinary sins, or promises of mighty rewards for slight good deeds.

If it spoke of the reward of prophets and messengers to the doer of good.

If the narrator confessed that he fabricated the report.

In addition to these rules of criticism, there is another very important test whereby the trustworthiness of Hadith may be judged, and it is a test the application whereof was commanded by the Holy Prophet himself. “There will be narrators,” he is reported to have said, “reporting Hadith from me, so judge by the Holy Qur’an; if a report agrees with the Holy Qur’an, accept it; otherwise, reject it.” The genuineness of this saying is beyond all question, as it stands on the soundest basis. That Hadith was in vogue in the time of the Holy Prophet is a fact admitted by even European critics, as already shown, and that the authority of the Holy Qur’an was higher than that of Hadith appears from numerous circumstances. “I am no more than a man,” the Holy Prophet is reported to have said according to a very reliable report. “When I order you anything respecting religion receive it, and when I order anything about the affairs of the world, I am no more than a man.” There is another saying of his: “My sayings do not abrogate the word of Allah, but the word of Allah can abrogate my sayings.” The hadith relating to Mu‘adh which has been quoted elsewhere, places the Holy Qur’an first, and the Hadith after that. ‘A’ishah used to quote a verse of the Holy Qur’an on hearing words from the mouth of the Holy Prophet when she thought that the purport of what the Holy Prophet said did not agree with the Holy Qur’an. The great Imam Bukhari quotes a verse of the Holy Qur’an whenever he finds one suiting his text, before citing a hadith, thus showing that the Holy Qur’an holds precedence over Hadith; and by common consent of the Muslim community, the Bukhari, which is considered to be the most trustworthy of all collections of Hadith, is called the most reliable of books after the Book of God. This verdict of the community as a whole is enough proof that even if the Bukhari disagrees with the Holy Qur’an, it is the Bukhari that must be rejected and not the Book of God. And, as has already been stated at the commencement of this chapter, Hadith is only an explanation of the Holy Qur’an, and hence also the latter must have precedence. And last of all, both Muslim and non-Muslim historians are agreed that the Holy Qur’an has been handed down intact, every word and every letter of it, while Hadith cannot claim that purity. All these considerations show that the saying that Hadith must be judged by Holy Qur’an is quite in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Prophet, and there is really no ground for doubting its genuineness. Even if there were no such saying, the test therein suggested would still have been the right test, because the Holy Qur’an deals with the principles of the Islamic law while Hadith deals with its details, and it is just and reasonable that only such details should be accepted as are in consonance with the principles. Again, as the Holy Prophet is plainly represented in the Holy Qur’an as not following “aught save that which is revealed” to him and as not disobeying a word of that which was revealed to him, it follows clearly that if there is anything in the Hadith which is not in consonance with the Holy Qur’an, it could not have proceeded from the Holy Prophet, and must, therefore, be rejected.

But the question arises as to whether all the collectors paid equal regard to the above canons of criticism. It is clear that they did not. The earliest of them, Bukhari, is, by a happy coincidence, also the soundest. He was not only most careful in accepting the trustworthiness of the narrators but he also paid the utmost attention to the last of the critical tests enumerated above: the test of judging Hadith by the Holy Qur’an. Many of his books and chapters are headed by Qur’anic verses, and occasionally he has contented himself with a verse of the Qur’an in support of his text. This shows that his criticism of Hadith was not limited to a mere examination of the guarantors, as every European critic seems to think, but that he also applied other tests. The act of criticism was, of course, applied mentally and one should not expect a record of the processes of that criticism in the book itself. So with the other collectors. They followed the necessary rules of criticism but were not all equally careful, nor did they all possess equal critical acumen or experience. Indeed, they sometimes intentionally relaxed the rules of criticism, both as regards the examination of the narrators and the critical tests. They also made a distinction between hadith relating to matters of jurisprudence and others, such as those having to do with past history or with prophecies, or with other material which had no bearing on the practical life of man. We are told that they were stricter in matter of jurisprudence than in other hadith. Thus in his Kitab al-Madkhal Baihaqi says: “When we narrate from the Holy Prophet in what is allowed and what is prohibited, we are strict in the chain of transmission and in the criticism of the narrators, but when we relate reports on the merits of people, and about reward and punishment, we are lax in the line of transmission and overlook the defects of the narrators.” And Ahmad ibn Hanbal says: “Ibn Ishaq is a man from whom such reports may be taken (i.e., those which relate to the life of the Holy Prophet), but when the question is about what is allowed and what is forbidden, we have recourse to a (strong) people like this, and he inserted the fingers of one hand amid those of the other,” conjoining the hands, and thus pointing to the strength of character of the transmitters.

It must, however, be admitted that most of the collectors paid more attention to the investigation of the narrators than to the other critical tests; they were justified in this, for their object was to produce reliable collections and, therefore, their first concern was to see that the hadith could be authentically traced back to the Holy Prophet through a trustworthy chain of narrators. This part of the criticism was more essential, as the longer the chain of narrators, the more difficult would it have been to test their reliability. Other tests could be applied to any hadith at any time, and the lapse of a thousand years could in no way affect the value of these tests, but the passing away of another century would have rendered the task of the examination of the chain of narrators so difficult as to be for all practical purposes impossible. Hence the collectors rightly focussed their attention on this test. Nor did the work of collecting the Hadith close the door to further criticism. The collectors contented themselves with producing collections reliable in the main, leaving the rest of the work of criticism to future generations. They never claimed infallibility for their works; even Bukhari did not do that. They exercised their judgements to the best of their ability, but they never claimed, nor does any Muslim claim on their behalf, infallibility of judgement. In fact, they had started a work which was to continue for generations. If possible, a hundred more canons of criticism might be laid down, but it would still be the judgement of one man as to whether a certain hadith should be accepted or rejected. Every collection is the work of one collector, and even if ninety-nine per cent of his judgements are correct, there is still room for the exercise of judgement by others. The Western critic errs in thinking that infallibility is claimed for any of the collectors of Hadith, and that the exercise of judgement by a certain collector precludes the exercise of judgement by others as to the reliability of a report.

We must also remember that, however much the collectors might have differed in their judgements as to the necessity for rigour in the rules of criticism, they set to work with minds absolutely free from bias or external influence. They would lay down their lives rather than swerve from what they deemed to be the truth. Many of the famous religious personalities preferred punishment or jail to uttering a word against their convictions. The fact is generally admitted as regards the Umayyad rule. As a European writer says: “They laboured to establish the sunnah of the community as it was, or as it was thought to have been, under the prophet’s rule, and so they found their bitterest enemies in the ruling house”. The independence of thought of the great Muslim divines under the Abbaside rule had not deteriorated in the least. They would not even accept office under a Muslim ruler: “It is well-known,” says Th. W. Juynboll in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, “that many pious, independent men in those days deemed it wrong and refused to enter the service of the Government or to accept an office dependent on it” (p.91).

Ibn Hajar had dealt with different classes of Hadith in the Sharh Nukhbat al-Fikr at great length. The most important division of Hadith is into mutawatir (continuous) and ahad (isolated). A hadith is said to be mutawatir (lit. repeated successively or by one after another) when it is reported by such a large number that it is impossible that they should have agreed upon falsehood, so that the very fact that it is commonly accepted makes its authority unquestionable. To this category belong hadith that have been accepted by every Muslim generation down from the time of the Holy Prophet. The mutawatir hadith are accepted without criticizing their narrators. All others are called ahad (pl. of ahad or wahid meaning one, i.e., isolated).

The ahad hadith are divided into three classes, mashhur (lit. well-known), technically hadith which are reported through more than two channels at every stage; ‘aziz (lit. strong), that is, hadith that are not reported through less than two channels; and gharib (lit. strange or unfamiliar), namely hadith in whose link of narrators there is only a single person at any stage. It should be noted that in this classification the condition as to the hadith being narrated by more than two, or two, or less than two persons at any stage applies only to the three generations following the Companions of the Holy Prophet.

Of the two chief classes of hadith, the mutawatir and the ahad, the first are all accepted so far as the line of transmission is concerned, but the latter are further sub-divided into two classes, maqbul or those which may be accepted, and mardud or those which may be rejected. Those that are maqbul, or acceptable, are again subdivided into two classes, sahih (lit. sound), and hasan (lit. fair). The condition for a hadith being sahih or sound is that its narrators are ‘adl (men whose sayings and decisions are approved or whom desire does not deviate from the right course), and tamm al-dzabt (guarding or taking care of hadith effectually); that it is muttasil al-sanad, i.e., that the authorities narrating it should be in contact with each other, so that there is no break in the transmission; that it is ghair mu‘allal i.e., that there is no ‘illah or defect in it; and that it is not shadhdh (lit. a thing apart from the general mass) i.e., against the general trend of Hadith or at variance with the overwhelming evidence of others. A hadith that falls short of this high standard, and fulfils the other conditions but does not fulfil the condition of its narrators being tamm al-dzabt (guarding or taking care of hadith effectually), is called hasan (fair). Such a hadith is regarded sound (sahih) when the deficiency of effectual guarding is made up for by the large number of its transmitters. A sound hadith is accepted unless there is stronger testimony to rebut what is stated therein. It has already been said that it is recognized by the collectors that a hadith may be unacceptable either because of some defect in its transmitters or because its subject-matter is unacceptable. Thus Ibn Hajar says that among the reasons for which a Hadith may be rejected is its subject-matter. For example if a report contradicts a verse of the Holy Qur’an or a recognized hadith or the unanimous verdict of the Muslim community or common-sense, it is not accepted.

As regards defects in transmission, a hadith is said to be marfu‘ when it is traced back to the Holy Prophet without any defect in transmission, muttasal when its isnad is uninterrupted, mauquf when it does not go back to the Holy Prophet, mu‘an‘an when it is linked by a word which does not show personal contact between two narrators, and mu‘allaq when the name of one or more transmitters is missing (being munqata‘ if the name is missing from the middle, and mursal if it is from the end).