A Handbook of Islam > Title Page > List of Contents

Previous / Next (3. Ijtihād or Exercise of Judgment)

2. The Hadith

Sunnah and Ḥadīth

Sunnah or Ḥadīth (the practice and the sayings of the 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.

Any student of the Quran 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 two most important religious institutions of Islam, for instance, are prayer and the compul­sory charity known as zakāt; 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. It was the Holy Prophet himself who by his own actions gave the details of the prayer service and the rules and regulations for the collection and payment of zakāt. 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.1 Whoever, therefore, embraced Islam stood in immediate need of both the Quran and the Sunnah.

Transmission of Hadith in Holy Prophet’s lifetime

The transmission of the practices and sayings of the Holy Prophet, from one person to another, thus became necessary during the 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.” 2

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.” 3

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 Quran but also explained to them how its injunctions were to be carried out in practice. And the Companions of the Prophet knew full well that his actions and practices were to be followed, should no express direc­tion be met with in the Quran. 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”.4 The Sunnah was, therefore, recognized in the very lifetime of the Holy Prophet as affording guidance in religious matters.

Preservation of Hadith in Holy Prophet’s lifetime

The preservation of what the Holy Prophet did or said was not 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. They were conscious of the fact that these things must be preserved for future generations. When one of the Companions 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.5 Another well-known report is from Abdullah ibn Amr:

“I used to write everything that I heard from the Messenger of Allah, intending to com­mit it to memory. [On some people taking objection to this] I spoke about it to the Messenger of Allah … who said: ‘Write down, for I only speak the truth’.” 6

These and other reports show that while generally Hadith was committed to memory, it was occasionally, when there was need for it, written down. The Prophet sometimes did object to the writing down of his sayings, but this was due to his fear lest his sayings be mixed up with the revealed word of the Quran and the purity of the text of the Quran might be affected. However, 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.7 He also wrote letters, and treaties were put down in writing too.

Memory was by no means an unreliable mode for the preservation of Hadith, for the Quran itself was safely preserved in the memory of the Companions of the Holy Prophet in addition to being committed to writ­ing. The Arabs had a wonderfully retentive memory in which to store up 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. 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. Later on, the famous Bukhari trusted to memory alone for the retention of as many as six hundred thousand sayings of the Holy Prophet and many students corrected their manuscripts by comparing them with what he had only retained in his memory.

Collection of Hadith: First stage

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. There was, however, a party of students called the Aṣḥāb al-Ṣuffah 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. He himself is reported to have said once:

“You say, Abu Hurairah is profuse in nar­rating hadith from the Messenger of Allah; and you say, How is it that the Refu­gees (Muhājirīn) and the Helpers (Anṣār) do not narrate hadith from the Messenger of Allah 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 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 Suffah, so I retained what they forgot.” 8

Aishah, the Holy Prophet’s wife, was also one of those who sought to preserve the practice of the 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: “she never heard anything she did not recog­nize but she questioned about it again and again”.9 In other words, she accepted nothing, even from the lips of the Holy Prophet himself, until she was fully satisfied as to its meaning. Abdullah ibn Umar and Abdullah ibn Abbas are two other Companions who were specially engaged in the work of preserving and transmitting the knowledge of the Quran and the Hadith, as also was Abdullah 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.

“Let him who is present deliver to him who is absent” 10 is the concluding sentence of many of his most important utterances, 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.

Collection of Hadith: Second stage

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 Quran 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 judgment or saying of the Holy Prophet, and evidence was demanded as to the authenti­city of that saying. Thus the multiple needs of a rapidly growing and widely spreading community, whose necessities had increased greatly, brought into prominence a large number of Hadith reports, 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.

Moreover, the influx into Islam of large numbers of people who had never seen the Prophet himself, but who could behold for themselves the astounding transformation brought about by him, 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 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. Every incident of his life had become public property before it could be forgotten.

Another important factor was that, to the Companions, the religion brought by the Holy Prophet was the greatest gift of God, and to carry it to other people had become the supreme object of their lives. The great Master had also laid, 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. And they were faithful to this duty. They travelled in all directions, and wherever they went, they carried with them the Quran and the Hadith. Individuals like Aishah, Abu ­Hurairah, Abdullah ibn Abbas, Abdullah ibn Umar, Abdullah ibn Amr, Anas ibn Malik and many others, whose first object in life was to preserve the sayings and practice of the Holy Prophet, became, as it were, centres to whom people resorted from different quarters of the kingdom of Islam to gain knowledge of Islam and its Prophet. 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.

Collection of Hadith: Third stage

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 of Hadith was now the property of teachers who taught at various centres, and, therefore, it could all be learnt by visiting these centres.

At this stage, moreover, the writing of Hadith became more common. The large number of the students at 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. There was now no fear of the Hadith being confused with the Quran. However, at this stage the Hadith reports 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 Abdul 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 of Hadith reports should be made. But he died after a short reign of two and a 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.

Collection of Hadith: Fourth stage

Before the middle of the second century of Hijrah, Hadith started to assume a more permanent shape, and written collections began to appear. Hundreds of 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. By far the most im­portant of these collections is the Muwaṭṭā of Imam Malik ibn Anas (d. 179 A.H., 795 C.E.). 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, and comments on the Quran, were outside their scope. And secondly, every author collected only such reports as were taught at the centre where he worked. These works were, however, a great advance on oral transmission in the work of collecting Hadith.

Collection of Hadith: Fifth stage

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 Jāmi‘ or Muṣannaf. Musnad is derived from sanad meaning authority, and the isnād of a Hadith report meant the tracing of it back through various transmitters to the Companion of the Holy Prophet on whose authority it rested. The Musnad collections were ar­ranged, not according to the subject-matter of the report, 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 (d. 241 A.H., 855 C.E.), which contains about thirty thousand reports.

It is to the Jāmi‘ or Muṣannaf that the honour is due of bringing the knowledge of Hadith to perfection. The word Jāmi‘ means ‘one that gathers together’ and Muṣannaf is something ‘compiled together’. The Jāmi‘ 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:

1. Muhammad ibn Ismail, commonly known as Bukhari (d. 256 A.H., 870 C.E.)

2. Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (d. 261 A.H., 875 C.E.)

3. Tir­midhi (d. 279 A.H., 892 C.E.)

4. Abu Dawud (d. 275 A.H., 889 C.E.)

5. Ibn Majah (d. 273 A.H., 887 C.E.)

6. Nasa’i (d. 303 A.H., 915 C.E.).11

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.12

Bukhari

Among the six collections mentioned above, known collectively as Ṣiḥāḥ Sittah or the ‘six reliable collections’, Bukhārī holds the first place in several respects while Muslim comes second. Firstly, 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 he sur­passes all. Fourthly, he heads the more important of his chapters with text from the Quran, and thus shows that Hadith is only an explanation of the Quran, and as such a secondary source of the teachings of Islam.

Method of counting reports

There is a wrong impression that the compilers of Hadith were faced with a vast mass of spurious reports and they did not credit more than one or two per cent of the prevailing mass as being genuine, the majority of the reports being fabrications. 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 reports. 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 different when even a single transmitter was changed. For instance, a report from Abu Hurairah 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 report had two reporters, the same would then be counted as twenty different reports. The number would thus go on increasing as the number of reporters increased. By the time of Bukhari, in a chain of ordinarily four or five transmitters, consider the number of reports that would arise from the same basic report 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.

Reports in biographies and commentaries

Western criticism of Islam has often mixed up Hadith with the reports met with in the biographies of the Holy Prophet and in the commentaries on the Quran.13 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”14 and Hafiz Zain-ud-Din Iraqi says that “they contain what is true and what is false”.

The same is true of the reports met with in the commentaries of the Quran, 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 of this 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. … Commentaries on the Quran were soon filled with these stories of theirs.” 15

Shah Wali-ullah 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.” 16

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 reports taken from reliable collections.

Canons of criticism of Hadith as accepted by Muslims

There is no doubt that the collectors of Hadith attached the utmost importance to the trustworthiness of the narrators. As Alfred 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.” 17

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 report 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. For example, a report was not accepted if it was opposed to recognized historical facts; or it was of such a nature that to know it and act upon it was incum­bent upon all but it was reported only by one individual; or it was against reason or against the plain teachings of Islam; or it mentioned an incident which, had it happened, would have been reported by large numbers, while it was not reported by anyone except the particular reporter; or if it contained an accusation against the Companions by a Shiah reporter, or against a member of the Holy Prophet’s family by a reporter who was a Khariji, and such a report was not corroborated by in­dependent testimony.

The Quran as the greatest test for judging Hadith

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 after me reporting sayings from me, so judge the sayings by the Quran; if it agrees with the Quran, accept it; otherwise, do not accept it.” 18

The genuineness of this saying is beyond all question, as it stands on the soundest basis. It is a fact that Hadith was in vogue in the time of the Holy Prophet, as already shown, and the authority of the Quran was treated as higher than that of Hadith, as appears from numerous occasions. There is a saying of the Holy Prophet:

“My sayings do not abrogate the word of Allah, but the word of Allah can abrogate my sayings.” 19

The hadith relating to Mu‘adh which has been quoted earlier (see page here) places the Quran first, and the Hadith after that. Aishah used to quote a verse of the Quran on hearing words reported from the Holy Prophet when she thought that the purport of what the Prophet reportedly said did not agree with the Quran. The great Imam Bukhari quotes a verse of the Quran whenever he finds one suiting his text, before citing a saying, thus showing that the Quran holds precedence over Hadith; and by common consent of the Muslim community, Bukhari’s collection, considered to be the most trustworthy of all collections of Hadith, is called the most reliable of books after the Book of Allah. This verdict is enough proof that even if something in Bukhari disagrees with the Quran, it is the former that must be rejected and not the Book of God.

Hadith is only an explanation of the Quran, and for this reason also the latter must have precedence. Moreover, both Muslim and non-Muslim historians are agreed that the Quran has been handed down intact, every word and every letter of it, while Hadith cannot claim that purity. Since the Quran deals with the principles of the Islamic law while Hadith deals with its details, 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 Quran as following “only what is rev­ealed” to him and as not disobeying a word of what was revealed to him,20 it follows clearly that if there is anything in Hadith which is not in consonance with the Quran, it could not have proceeded from the Holy Prophet, and must, therefore, be rejected.

How far did the Collectors apply these tests?

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 Quran. Many of his books and chapters are headed by Quranic verses, and occasionally he has contented himself with a verse of the Quran in support of his text. This shows that his criticism of Hadith was not limited to a mere ex­amination of the guarantors 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.

Other collectors too 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 reports 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. They were stricter in matters of jurisprudence, relating to what is allowed and what is prohibited, than in other reports.

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. Their object was to produce reliable collec­tions and, therefore, their first concern was to see that the reports 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. The passing away of another century would have rendered the task of the examination of the chain of narrators practically 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, nor does any Muslim claim on their behalf, infallibility of judgment, even in the case of Bukhari. In fact, they had started a work which was to continue in future.

We must also remember that the collectors 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, facing bitter opposition from the vested interests of the Muslim ruling houses of the time, preferred punishment or jail to uttering a word against their beliefs. Many of them, in order to retain their independence, refused to accept any employment or office from the government.

Go to: List of Contents   •   Previous / Next (3. Ijtihād or Exercise of Judgment)

Notes to Chapter 2

1. See the Quran, 33:21.

2. Mishkat, book 1: ‘Faith’, ch. 1, sec. 1, h. 15 (v. 1, p. 19).

3. Bukhari, book 3: ‘Knowledge’, ch. 37, h. 104, h. 105.

4. See page here for the full quotation.

5. Tirmidhi, book 41: ‘Knowledge’, ch. 12, h. 2666 (DS: book 39).

6. Abu Dawud, book 26: ‘Knowledge’, ch. 3, h. 3646 (DS: book 24).

7. Bukhari, book 3: ‘Knowledge’, ch. 39, h. 112.

8. Bukhari, book 34: ‘Sales and Trade’, ch. 1, h. 2047.

9. Bukhari, book 3: ‘Knowledge’, ch. 36, h. 103.

10. Ibid.,ch. 37, chapter heading and h. 104, h. 105.

11. The works of Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah and Nasa’i are more generally known by the name of Sunan (pl. of sunnah).

12. The Shiahs have separate collections of Hadith which they recognize.

13. The term for a biography of the Holy Prophet is Sīrat, and for a commentary of the Quran is Tafsīr.

14. Mauḍū‘āt by Mulla Ali Qari, p. 85.

15. Muqaddamah by Ibn Khaldun, Cairo 1329 A.H., v. 1, p. 481, chapter ‘Ulūm-ul-Qur’ān.

16. Ḥujjatullāh al-Bālighah, Brailey, India, 1286 A.H., v. 1, p. 171.

17. Alfred Guillaume, Traditions of Islam, Oxford, 1924, p. 83.

18. Sunan Al-Dāra Quṭnī, under Letter of Umar to Abu Musa al-Ash‘ari. In the Urdu translation of this work by Hafiz Faizullah Nasir, published 2015, see report 4476 in vol. 3, p. 425.

19. Mishkat, book 1: ‘Faith’, ch. 6, sec. 3, h. 184 (v. 1, p. 62).

20. See the Quran, 6:50, 7:203, 46:9; and 6:15, 10:15.