Sayings attributed to the Prophet Mohammed, prefaced by a chain of authorities through whom the tradition is said to have been transmitted. One of the chief sources of Islamic law, it is second in authority only to the Qur'an.
Hadith collections are regarded as important tools for determining the Sunnah, or Muslim way of life, by all traditional schools of jurisprudence.Overview
A hadith was originally an oral tradition relevant to the actions and customs of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Starting the first Fitna of the 7th century, those receiving the hadith started to question the sources of the saying .
The hadith were eventually recorded in written form, had their Isnad evaluated and collected into large collections mostly during the reign of Umar II during 8th century, something that solidified in the 9th century.
History
Traditions regarding the life of Muhammad and the early history of Islam were passed down orally for more than a hundred years after the death of Muhammad in 632.
Muslim historians say that it was the caliph Uthman (the third caliph, or successor of Muhammad, who had formerly been Muhammad's secretary), who first urged Muslims both to write down the Qur'an in a fixed form, and to write down the hadith.
The Muslim community (ummah) then fell into a prolonged civil war, termed the Fitna by Muslim historians.
Muslim historians say that hadith collection and evaluation continued during the first Fitna and the Umayyad period. The histories and hadith collections we possess today were written down at the start of the Abbasid period, more than one hundred years after the death of Muhammad. Scholars had to decide which hadith were to be trusted as authentic narrations and which had been invented for various political or theological purposes. For this purpose, they used a number of techniques which Muslims now call the science of hadith.
Use
The overwhelming majority of Muslims consider hadith to be essential supplements to and clarifications of the Qur'an, Islam's holy book. Hadith are a source for Islamic history and biography. For the vast majority of devout Muslims, authentic hadith are also a source of religious inspiration.
However, some contemporary Muslims argue that the Qur'an alone is sufficient. Muslims who take the "Qur'an alone" viewpoint are regarded as deviant by mainstream Muslim scholars, and by the vast majority of Muslims. See salat.) It is also important to note that most Muslims claim that the Quran cannot be explained or read with understanding which is why the Hadith is referred to as the "second source" of Islam. There are great debates between Muslims regarding Quran only views and Hadith views.
The origins of some verses and statements in the Hadith cannot be verified as regards their source of origin.
Muslim scholars classify hadith relating to Muhammad as follows:
What Muhammad said (قول) (qawl) What Muhammad did (فعل) (fi'l) What Muhammad approved (تقرير) (taqrir) in others' actionsThere are also hadith relating to the words and deeds of the companions, but they may not have the same weight as those about Muhammad. Accounts of early Islam are also to be found in:
sira (stories, especially biographies of Muhammad) tafsir (commentary on the Qur'an) fiqh (juristic reasoning)Some of these accounts are also found as hadith; for the Muslim scholar, hadith have a special status. they argue that the hadith are of human creation and have no authority.
Science of hadith
The commonest technique consists of a careful examination of the isnad, or chain of transmission. Each hadith is accompanied by an isnad: A heard it from B who heard it from C who heard it from a companion of Muhammad.
Examples of Hadith
“The first thing created by God was the intellect.” “The ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the martyr.” “One learned man is harder on the devil than a thousand worshippers.” “Riches are not from an abundance of worldly goods, but from a contended mind.” “He who wishes to enter the paradise at the best door must please his mother and father.” “No man is a true believer unless he desires for his brother that he desires for himself.” “When the bier of anyone passes by you, whether Jew, Christian, or Muslim, rise to your feet.“ “The thing which is lawful but is disliked by God is divorce.” “Women are twin-halves of men.” “Actions will be judged according to intentions.” “That which is lawful is clear and that which is unlawful likewise, but there are certain doubtful things between the two from which it is well to abstain.” “The proof of a Muslim’s sincerity is that he pays no attention to that which is not his business.” “That person is nearest to God, who pardons…him who would have injured him.” “…yield obedience to my successor, although he may be an Abyssinian slave.” “The creation is like God’s family…the most beloved unto God is the person who does good to God’s family.” “Modesty and chastity are parts of the Faith.”Views
Currently there is little communication between the world of Muslim hadith scholarship and Western academia. Western academics tend to dismiss Muslim scholars as irrelevant, bound as they are to millennia-old technique of hadith evaluations which modern scholarship regards as out-dated.
However, some Muslim scholars have undergone Western academic training and attempted to mediate between the traditional Muslim and the secular Western view. Notable among these was Fazlur Rahman (1911-1988) who argued that while the chain of transmission of the hadith may often be spurious, the content, the matn, can still be used to understand how Islam can be lived in the modern world.
Muslim view
Muslims who accept hadith believe that trusted hadith are in most cases the words of Muhammad and not the word of God, like the Qur'an. Hadith Qudsi forms a partial exception; these (few) hadith are said to be recount divine revelations given to Muhammad but not included in the Qur'an.
While both hadith and Qur'an have been translated, most Muslims believe that translations of the Qur'an are inherently deficient, amounting to little more than a commentary upon the text. There is no such belief regarding hadith. Even for Muslims who accept the hadith, they are lower in rank when compared the Qur'an.
Sunni view
The Sunni canon of hadith took its final form close to three centuries after the death of Muhammad. Later scholars may have debated the authenticity of particular hadith but the authority of the canon as a whole was not questioned. This canon, called the Six major Hadith collections, includes:
| name | Collector | Size |
| Sahih Bukhari | Imam Bukhari (d. 870) | 7275 hadiths |
| Sahih Muslim | Muslim b. 886) |
Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim are usually considered the most reliable of these collections. There is some debate over whether the sixth member of this canon should be Ibn Maja or the Muwatta of Imam Malik, which is the earliest hadith canon but predates much of the methodology developed by the classic hadith scholars.
While there are still many traditional Muslims who rely on the ulema and its long tradition of hadith collection and criticism, other contemporary Sunni Muslims are willing to reconsider tradition. The Salafis claim that the ordinary believer can trust his or her own judgment (even if he or she is not trained in Islamic scholarship) if he or she relies on Bukhari and Muslim, the commentators deemed to be most correct (sahih), and ignores the weak hadith.
Shi'a view
Shi'a Muslims trust traditions transmitted by Muhammad's descendents through Fatima Zahra, or by early Muslims who remained faithful to Ali ibn Abi Talib. Shi'a sometimes distrust traditions transmitted by early Muslims who were hostile to Ali, Muslims such as Aisha, Muhammad's widow, who opposed Ali at the Battle of the Camel. Williams writes regarding which hadith are accepted by Shias, "In law, the Twelvers do not accept hadiths transmitted by enemies of the Imāms such as ‘A’isha, and make use also of the saying of the Imāms."
There are various sects within Shi'a Islam and within each sect, various traditions of scholarship. Each sect, and each scholar, may differ as to the hadith to be accepted as reliable and those to be rejected.
Four prominent Shi'a hadith collections are:
Usul al-Kafi Al-Istibsaar Al-Tahzeeb Mun La YahDuruHu al-FaqeehAnd also the 10th century Nahj al-Balagha.
Ibadi view
Ibadi Islam (found mainly in the Arabian kingdom of Oman) accepts many Sunni hadith, while rejecting others, and accepts some hadith not accepted by Sunnis. Ibadi jurisprudence is based only on the hadith accepted by Ibadis, which are far less numerous than those accepted by Sunnis. Several of Ibadism's founding figures - in particular Jabir ibn Zayd - were noted for their hadith research, and Jabir ibn Zayd is accepted as a reliable narrator by Sunni scholars as well as Ibadi ones.
The principal hadith collection accepted by Ibadis is al-Jami'i al-Sahih, also called Musnad al-Rabi ibn Habib, as rearranged by Abu Ya'qub Yusuf b. The total number of hadith it contains is 1005, and an Ibadi tradition recounted by al-Rabi has it that there are only 4000 authentic prophetic hadith. The rules used for determining the reliability of a hadith are given by Abu Ya'qub al-Warijlani, and are largely similar to those used by Sunnis; The Ibadi jurists accept hadith narrating the words of Muhammad's companions as a third basis for legal rulings, alongside the Qur'an and hadith relating Muhammad's words.
Contemporary Western scholars of hadith include:
Herbert Berg, The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam (2000) Fred M. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins (1998) Wilferd Madelung, Succession to Muhammad (1997)Madelung has immersed himself in the hadith literature and has made his own selection and evaluation of tradition. Having done this, he is much more willing to trust hadith than many of his contemporaries.
Harald Motzki :
Gregor Schoeler :
Criticism
The hadith Ahmed, Vol. Some people would interpret this to mean that the Hadith should never have been written; but according to most scholars and researchers, this hadith was valid when the Qur'an was being revealed. The reason behind this order was to prevent any risk of confusing the Qur'an with the Hadith. However, once the revelation was completed and it was secure that no more verses were going to be descended, it was permissible and even an obligation to write down the Hadith to preserve it throughout time, because, had the memorisers of the Hadith passed away before writing it down, the Hadiths would have disappeared. Muslims have been ordered to follow the Sunna of Prophet Muhammad because it is an order clearly stated in the Qur'an in several places such as in Surah al-Imran (3) verses 32 and 132, Surah an-Nisa' (4) verse 59, Surah al-Maidah (5) verse 92, Surah al-Anfal (8) verses 1, 20, 46, Surah an-Noor (24) verses 54, 56, Surah Muhammad (47) verse 33, etc. (IslamiCity.com)
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