Contents
Hadith
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Glossary of Islamic terms
Hadith (الحديث transliteration: al-ḥadīth, pl. aḥadīth; lit. "narrative") are oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hadith collections are regarded as important tools for determining the Sunnah, or Muslim way of life, by all traditional schools of jurisprudence.
Definition and usage
Linguistically the word ‘hadith’ means: that which is new from amongst things or a piece of information conveyed either in a small quantity or large. The Arabic plural is aḥādīth. In English academic usage, hadith is often both singular and plural.[citation needed] And hadith is what is spoken by the speaker. Tahdith is the infinitive, or verbal noun, of the original verb form. Therefore, hadith is not the infinitive,[1] rather it is a noun.[2]
In Islamic terminology, the term hadith refers to reports about the statements or actions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, or about his tacit approval of something said or done in his presence.[3] Classical hadith specialist Ibn Hajar says that the intended meaning of "hadith" in religious tradition is something attributed to Muhammad, as opposed to the Qur'an.[4] Other associated words possess similar meanings: "khabar" (news, information) often refers to reports about Muhammad, but sometimes refers to traditions about his companions (sahāba) and their successors from the following generation (tābi'īn); conversely, "athar" (trace, vestige) usually refers to traditions about the companions and successors, though sometimes connotes traditions about Muhammad. The word sunnah (custom) is also used in reference to a normative custom of Muhammad or the early Muslim community.[3]
Format
A hadith consists of two aspects: the text of the report (matn) containing the actual narrative; and the chain of narrators (isnad, or sanad), which documents the route by which the report has been transmitted.[3] The "sanad" is so named due to the reliance of the hadith specialists upon it in determining the authenticity or weakness of a hadith.[clarification needed][5] The sanad consists of a ‘chain’ of the narrators each mentioning the one from whom they heard the hadith until mentioning the originator of the matn along with the matn itself. The first people who received hadith were the companions; so they preserved and understood it, knowing both its generality and particulars, and then conveyed it to those after them as they were commanded. Then the generation following them, the Followers received it thus conveying it to those after them and so on. So the companion would say, “I heard the Prophet say such and such.” The Follower would then say, “I heard a companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet.’” The one after him (after the Follower) would then say, “I heard someone say, ‘I heard a Companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet …’’” and so on.[6]
Overview
Hadiths were originally oral traditions of Muhammad's actions and customs. From the first Fitna of the 7th century people questioned the sources of hadiths. [7] This resulted in a list of transmitters, for example "A told me that B told him that Muhammad said."
Hadith were eventually written down, evaluated and gathered into large collections mostly during the reign of Umar II (bin Abdul Aziz, grandson of Umar bin Khattab(RAA)2nd Caliph) during 8th century, and also in the 9th century. These works are referred to in matters of Islamic law and History to this day.
History
Traditions of the life of Muhammad and the early history of Islam were passed down orally for more than a hundred years after Muhammad's death in AD 632.
It was clear that Muhammed forbade his sahaba to write down words of his other than those comprising the Quran. However after his death, many corrupted sahaba fabricated his words and life style and wrote those down as a book. Eventually those were given the name 'Hadith'[8]. Most muslims follow those hadith as a parallel book of the Quran; despite the fact that in the Quran, God prohibits following religious laws other than those in the Quran. These hadith contradict with Quran regarding religious views and rules.
Muslim historians say that khalifa Uthman (the third khalifa, or successor of Muhammad, who had formerly been Muhammad's secretary), was the first to urge Muslims to write the Qur'an in a fixed form, and to record the hadith. Osman's labours were cut short by his assassination, at the hands of aggrieved soldiers, in 656.
The Muslim community (ummah) then fell into a prolonged civil war, which Muslim historians call the Fitna. After the fourth khalifa Ali ibn Abi Talib was assassinated in 661, the Umayyad dynasty seized control of the Islamic empire. Ummayad rule was interrupted by a second civil war (the Second Fitna), re-established, and ended in 758 when the Abbasid dynasty seized the khilafat, and held it, at least in name, until 1258.
Muslim historians say that hadith collection and evaluation continued during the first Fitna and the Umayyad period. However, much of this activity was presumably oral transmission from early Muslims to later collectors, or from teachers to students. If any of these early scholars committed any of these collections to writing, they have not survived. The histories and hadith collections we have today were written down at the start of the Abbasid period, more than a hundred years after Muhammad's death.
Scholars of the Abbasid period were faced with a huge corpus of miscellaneous traditions, some of them flatly contradicting each other. Many of these traditions supported differing views on a variety of controversial matters. Scholars had to decide which hadith were to be trusted as authentic and which had been invented for political or theological purposes. To do this, they used a number of techniques which Muslims now call the science of hadith.
At the beginning 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 were gathered into large collections during the 8th century.
Use
The overwhelming majority of Muslims consider hadith to be essential supplements to and clarifications of the Qur'an, Islam's holy book. In Islamic jurisprudence, the Qur'an contains many rules for the behavior expected of Muslims but there are no specific Qur'anic rules on many religious and practical matters. Muslims believe that they can look at the way of life, or sunnah, of Muhammad and his companions to discover what to imitate and what to avoid. Muslim scholars also find it useful to know how Muhammad or his companions explained the revelations, or on what occasion Muhammad received them. Sometimes this will clarify a passage that otherwise seems obscure. 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.
Non-Muslim scholars note that there is a great overlap between the records of early Islamic traditions. Accounts of early Islam are also to be found in: