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Hadith sciences ( ʻilm al-ḥadīth " science of hadith") consists of several religious scholarly disciplines used by Muslim scholars in the study and evaluation of the hadith. ("Science" is used in the sense of a field of study, not to be confused with following the principles of observation and experiment, developing falsifiable hypotheses, etc. of modern science.) The hadith are what most Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval of the Islamic prophet Muhammad as transmitted through chains of narrators. An Introduction to the Science of Hadith, translated by Eerik Dickinson, from the translator's introduction, p. xiii, Garnet publishing,Reading, U.K., first edition, 2006. Hadith sciences scholars have aim to determine which of these records are authentic, and which may be fabricated.
For most Muslims, determining authenticity of hadith is enormously important in Islam because along with the Quran, the Sunnah of the Islamic prophet—his words, actions, and the silent approval—are considered the explanation of the divine revelation ( wahy), and the record of them (i.e. hadith) provides the basis of Islamic law (Sharia). In addition, while the number of verses pertaining to law in the Quran is relatively few, hadith, for many, give direction on everything from details of religious obligations (such as Ghusl or Wudu, ablutionsAn-Nawawi, Riyadh As-Salihin, 1975: p.203 for salat prayer), to the correct forms of salutations,An-Nawawi, Riyadh As-Salihin, 1975: p.168 and the importance of benevolence to slaves.An-Nawawi, Riyadh As-Salihin, 1975: p.229 Thus the "great bulk" of the rules of Islamic law are derived from hadith, along with the Quran as a primary source.
There are three primary ways to determine the authenticity ( sihha) of a hadith: by attempting to determine whether there are "other identical reports from other transmitters"; determining the reliability of the transmitters of the report; and "the continuity of the chain of transmission" of the hadith.
Traditional hadith sciences has been praised by some as "unrivaled, the ultimate in historical criticism", and heavily criticized for failing to filter out a massive amount of hadith "which cannot possibly be authentic". However, both Muslims and western scholars have criticised the hadith. Quranists reject the authority of the hadiths, viewing them as un-Quranic; some further claim that most hadiths are fabrications (pseudepigrapha) created in the 8th and 9th century AD, and which are falsely attributed to Muhammad.Aisha Y. Musa, The Qur’anists, Florida International University, accessed May 22, 2013.Neal Robinson (2013), Islam: A Concise Introduction, Routledge, , Chapter 7, pp. 85-89 Many Western scholars consider that few or no hadith can be confidently considered to be the authentic words of Muhammad, and that traditional attempts to determine the authenticity of hadith are flawed due to the potential for the chain of narrators (particularly the earliest parts) to have been fabricated.
The Umayyad caliph, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (aka Umar II, who reigned from 717-720 CE) also started an effort to collect all the hadiths. Teaching and collecting hadiths was part of a plan of his to renew the moral fiber of the Muslim community. He supported teachers of fiqh, sent educators to Bedouin tribes, ordered weekly hadith lectures in the Hejaz, and sent out scholars of hadith to Egypt and North Africa, (according to Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi).
Umar also ordered the great scholar of Madinah, Abu Bakr ibn Hazm to write down all the hadiths of Muhammad and Umar ibn al-Khattab, particularly those narrated by Aisha. He had these hadiths collected in books which were circulated around the Umayyad Empire. Although these books are lost today, commentaries on them by Ibn al-Nadim reveals that they are organized like books of fiqh, such as the Muwatta of Imam Malik, the first large compilation of hadiths. Imam Malik himself probably followed the general plan of the early books of hadith ordered by Umar.
Hadith sciences developed in part because forgery "took place on a massive scale", with perhaps the most famous collector of hadith and practitioner of ʻilm al-ḥadīth—Muhammad al-Bukhari—sifting through nearly 600,000, (2025). 9781851686636, Oneworld Publications. ISBN 9781851686636 over 16 years before eliminating all but approximately 7400 hadith.
Traditional accounts describe "the systematic study of hadith" as being motivated by the altruism of "pious scholars" seeking to correct this problem.Brown, Rethinking tradition in modern Islamic thought, 1996: p.19 Some scholars (Daniel W. Brown, A. Kevin Reinhart) shed doubt on this. Brown believes the theory "fails" to adequately account "for the atmosphere of conflict" of at least early hadith criticism. The "method of choice" of partisans seeking to discredit opposing schools of Islamic law was to discredit the authorities (transmitters) of their opponent's hadith—to "tear apart" their isnads". (To do this required developing biographical evaluations of hadith transmitters— ʿilm al-rijāl and ilm jarh wa ta’dil). Reinhart finds descriptions of famous companions of Muhammad in Ibn Sa'd's Kitāb aṭ-ṭabaqāt al-kabīr "recording hadith and transmitting it, asking each other about precedents, and reproaching those who disregarded this authentic religious knowledge" in suspicious conformity to the "mythology of the pristine early community".
As the criteria for judging authenticity grew into the six major collections of ṣaḥīḥ (sound) hadith ( Kutub al-Sittah) in the third century, the science of hadith was described as having become a "mature system", or to have entered its "final stage".
The classification of Hadith into
A basic element of hadith sciences consist of a careful examination of the chain of transmission ( sanad سند, also isnād اسناد, or silsila سِلْسِلَة), relaying each hadith from the Prophet to the person who compiles the hadith. The isnād and the commentary are distinct from the matn (متن), which is the main body, or text, of the hadith, Tadrib al-Rawi, by al-al-Suyuti vol. 1, pp. 39–41 with abridgement.Hans Wehr, Arabic-English Dictionary, page 752. These two terms are the primary components of every hadith.
According to the person most responsible for elevation of the importance of hadith in Islamic law, Imam Al-Shafi‘i,
"In most cases the truthfulness or lack of truthfulness of a tradition can only be known through the truthfulness or lack of truthfulness of the transmitter, except in a few special cases when he relates what cannot possibly be the case, or what is contradicted by better-authenticated information."Al-Shafi'i, al-Risala, Bulaq, 1321; ed. Sheikh Ahmad Muhammad Shakir, Cairo, 1940 (ed. Shakir), 55
The first people who received hadith were Muhammad's "Companions" ( Sahaba), who are believed to have understood and preserved it. They conveyed it to those after them as they were commanded; then the generation following them, the "Followers" ( Tabi‘un), received it and then conveyed it to those after them, and so on. Thus, the Companion would say, “I heard the Prophet say such and such.” The Follower would say, “I heard a Companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet say’” The one after the Follower would say, “I heard a Follower say, ‘I heard a Companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet say’” and so on. Ilm al-Rijal wa Ahimiyatuh, by Mu'allami, p. 16, Dar al-Rayah. I substituted the word sunnah with the word hadith as they are synonymous in this context.
Transmitters are studied and rated for their "general capacity" ( ḍābit; itqān) and their moral character ( ʿadāla).
Not all transmitters were evaluated for these characteristics and rated. Companions of the prophet ( ṣaḥāba) were traditionally considered to possess collective moral turpitude or taʿdīl, by virtue of their exposure to the Prophet, so that they all possessed ʿadāla without needing to be evaluated. (This quality was similar to that of Prophetic infallibility ( Ismah) but of course lower in level.)
Transmitters must have lived during the same period, they must have had the opportunity to meet, and they must have reached sufficient age at the time of transmission to guarantee their capacity to transmit.Early religious scholars stressed the importance of the sanad. For example, according to an early Quranic exegete, Matr al-Warraq,Matr ibn Tihman al-Warraq died in the year 119 after the migration; he used to transcribe the Quran ( Kitab al-Jami bain Rijal al-Sahihain, vol. 2, p. 526, Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah). the verse from the Quran, “Or a remnant of knowledge,”Sorah al-Ahqaf: 4 refers to the isnad of a hadith.Reported by al-Khatib al-Bagdadi in Sharaf Ashab al-Hadith, p. 83, no. 68, Maktabah Ibn Taymiyah. al-Sakhawi also mentioned this narration in Fath al-Mugith, vol. 3, p. 333, Dar Alam al-Kutub.
In addition, Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak said, “The isnad is from the religion; were it not for the isnad anyone could say anything they wanted.”Reported by Muslim in the introduction to his Sahih, vol. 1, p. 9, Dar Taibah. This narration is also mentioned in the translation of ‘An Introduction to the Science of Hadith,’ p. 183. According to Ibn al-Salah, the sanad originated within the Muslim scholastic community and remains unique to it. Ulum Al-Hadith, p. 255; this also appears on p. 183 of the translation. Ibn Hazm said that the connected, continuous sanad is particular to the religion of Islam: the sanad was also used by the Judaism, but they had a break of more than 30 generations between them and Moses, and the Christianity limited their use of the sanad to the prohibition of divorce.Summarized from Tadrib Al-Rawi, vol. 2, p. 143. Ibn Taymiyyah also said that the knowledge of isnad is particular to the followers of Prophet Muhammad. Majmū' Al-Fatāwa
The practice of paying particular attention to the sanad can be traced to the generation following that of the Companions, based upon the statement of Muhammad Ibn Sirin: “They did not previously inquire about the sanad. However, after the turmoil occurred they would say, ‘Name for us your narrators.’ So the people of the Sunnah would have their hadith accepted and the people of innovation would not.”Reported by Muslim in the introduction to his Sahih, vol. 1, p. 8. Those who were not given to require a sanad were, in the stronger of two opinions, the Companions of the Prophet, while others, such as al-Qurtubi, include the older of the Followers as well.See the discussion of this issue in Qurrat Ayn al-Muhtaj by Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Adam, vol. 2, pp. 57–8.
Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, stating likewise, cited various evidences for this, from them, the Quranic verse, “And you were the best nation brought about to mankind.” Al-Kifayah, p. 46, Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah photocopied from the Indian print with Muallimi’s verification. The verse mentioned is verse 110 of Surah Aal Imran; the translation of ‘ummah’ is based upon Ibn Kathir’s interpretation of the verse. The fitnah referred to is the conflicting ideologies of the Kharijites and the Ghulat that had emerged at the time of the third Caliph Uthman ibn Affan, his assassination and the social unrest of the Kharijites in opposition to the succeeding rulers, Ali and Muawiyah I.This is the explanation provided by al-Qurtubi in al-Mufhim, vol. 1, pp. 122–3 as quoted in Qurrah Ayn Al-Muhtaj, vol. 2, p. 58. The death of Uthman was in the year 35 after the migration.Al-Bidiyah wa Al-Nihayah, vol. 10, p. 323, Dar Alam al-Kutub.
hadith scholar Salah al-Din al-Idlibi is an expert in the relatively new field of matn criticism. Whereas traditional criticism has focused on verifying the trustworthiness of the people transmitting the hadith, matn criticism studies the contents of the hadith and compares this with the contents of other hadiths and any other available historical evidence with the aim of arriving at an objective historical reality of the event described by the hadith.
Among the criticisms made (of non-sahih as well as sahih hadith) of is that there was a suspiciously large growth in their number with each generation in the early years of Islam;Ibn Rawandi, "Origins of Islam", 2000: p.117 that large numbers of hadith contradicted each other; and that the genre's status as a primary source of Islamic law motivated the creation of fraudulent hadith.
Modern Western scholars in particular have "seriously questioned the historicity and authenticity of the hadith", according to John Esposito, maintaining that "the bulk of traditions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad were actually written much later." According to Esposito, Joseph Schacht "found no evidence of legal traditions before 722," from which Schacht concluded that "the Sunna of the Prophet is not the words and deeds of the Prophet, but apocryphal material" dating from later.
Henry Preserved Smith and Ignác Goldziher also challenged the reliability of the hadith, Smith stating that "forgery or invention of traditions began very early" and "many traditions, even if well authenticated to external appearance, bear internal evidence of forgery." Goldziher writes that "European critics hold that only a very small part of the ḥadith can be regarded as an actual record of Islam during the time of Mohammed and his immediate followers." In his Mohammedan Studies, Goldziher states: "it is not surprising that, among the hotly debated controversial issues of Islam, whether political or doctrinal, there is not one in which the champions of the various views are unable to cite a number of traditions, all equipped with imposing isnads".
Patricia Crone noted that early traditionalists were still developing conventions of examining the Isnad that by later standards were sketchy/deficient, even though they were closer to the historical material. Later though they possessed impeccable chains, but were more likely to be fabricated.Patricia Crone, Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law (1987/2002 paperback), pp. 23–34, paperback edition Reza Aslan quotes Schacht's maxim: `the more perfect the isnad, the later the tradition`, which he (Aslan) calls "whimsical but accurate".No God But God : The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan, (Random House, 2005) p.163
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