by Dr. Ali Shehata
Can Hadith be Trusted as Authentic?
In very recent times, criticism by some has been directed at the integrity and authenticity of the process of collecting hadith. Many false allegations have become widespread, including the baseless idea that hadith were not physically recorded for one or two centuries after the death of the Prophet. This section will provide some of the factual details concerning the collection of hadith and the veracity of its related science in Islam.
In reality, the memorization of the Sunnah began during the lifetime of the Prophet by his own command. One authentic hadith that clearly illustrates this command is the following hadith:
Ibn Mas'ud narrated that he heard the Messenger of God pbuh say, "May God bless the one who has heard my words and then memorized them until he conveyed them to another person. Perhaps the one that he conveys it to will understand it better than he does." [Tirmithi, Ibn Maajah]
Other than from Ibn Mas'ud, this hadith has been narrated by twenty-three other Companions, and has been recorded in forty-five different collections of hadith. In fact, in his famous farewell sermon, the Prophet pbuh is recorded to have said, "Those who are present here should convey this message to those who are absent." [Bukhari] Furthermore, there are other hadith which include the command to spread the words of the Prophet, and warned of the severe punishment for those who intentionally twist his words. For example:
Abdullah ibn 'Umar narrated that the Messenger of God said, "Convey to others my words, even it be just one verse … but whoever falsely attributes something to me which I never said should expect his own seat in the Hellfire." [Bukhari]
Hence, with the above mentioned explicit order of the Prophet, many of the Companions were known to both memorize and write down his statements or hadith. In fact, it was common among the Prophet’s Companions to memorize verbatim the Prophet’s statements to not only benefit from them, but also to inform those who were absent about the Prophet’s sayings and actions. Also, there are a number of authentic narrations demonstrating how some Companions (‘Ali ibn Abu Talib, Ibn Mas’ud, and Abu Sa’id al-Khudri amongst others) advised the Muslims who came after them (the Successors) to memorize hadith, which they would then do, either individually or in groups.
Close examination of hadith literature also shows how the Prophet used to teach his Companions through different educational styles and techniques such as: repetition, questioning, dictation, and practical demonstration. After teaching them, he would have them tell him what they had understood, thus ensuring that the message was transferred clearly to them. Along with his Companions, deputations from outside were also educated in both the Quran and the Sunnah, as was the Christian delegation of Najran, and the Prophet even had copies of his sermons sent to certain groups.
Additionally, the Prophet dictated letters that were sent out to the surrounding empires and peoples, some of which were very detailed and dealt with a wide range of legal matters. It can be safely said that there was a great deal of written instruction coming from the Prophet since it has been recorded that he had at least sixty-five scribes during the twenty-three years that he was a Prophet. (al-A'zami, M.M. (2016) The Scribes of the Prophet. London: Turath )
Furthermore, some of the Companions were well known for their recording of every statement that they heard from the Prophet. Some of the more famous compilations were those of the Companions Ali ibn Abi Taalib, Abdullah ibn 'Umar ibnul Khattab, Sa`d ibn `Ubâdah, Anas ibn Maalik and `Abdullah ibn`Amr ibn al-`Aas whose book of hadith is known as “al-Sahîfah al-Sâdiqah” (the Trustworthy Record). A large number of Companions, including the greatest narrator among them, Abu Hurairah, thus had libraries of books which contained the statements of the Prophet.
In fact, it is authentically established that the Prophet gave some of his Companions the express permission to write down everything that he said. `Abdullah ibn `Amr ibn al-`Aas relates that he used to write down everything that he heard the Prophet say. Some members of the local Arab tribes censured him by saying, “Do you write down everything that you hear from God’s Messenger while he is a man who speaks in happiness and in anger?” `Abdullah ibn `Amr ibn al-`Aas then reported that he stopped writing the hadith and went to mention this matter to God’s Messenger, upon which the Prophet told him, “Write. For I swear by Him in whose Hand is my soul, nothing comes out from this except the truth.” And he pointed to his mouth. [Related by al-Haakim and others]
Another authentic hadith that supports the above statement is from the narration of Anas ibn Maalik wherein he states that he heard the Prophet say, "Secure knowledge by writing it down." [Haakim]
Indeed, God summarizes this very point in the Quran when He says about the Prophet Muhammad pbuh: “He does not speak of his own desire. It is only revelation that is revealed to him.” {68:5}
The generation that came after the Companions, known as the Successors (Tabi’een), followed in footsteps of the Companions who were their direct teachers. They relied upon memorization and narration, in addition to taking from the written works, and some of them also recorded portions of the Sunnah in writing. They initiated the process of seeking out those Companions who had memorized hadith from the Prophet in order to write them down.
Some of the more well known records from amongst the Successors includes those of Sa`eed ibn Jubayr and Mujahid bin Jabr (both students of the great Companion Ibn `Abbâs); Bashir bin Nuhayk, who collected hadith from the hadith master of the Companions, Abu Hurayra; Abu al-Zubayr Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Tadris al-Makki, the student of Jabir ibn `Abdullah; and Hisham bin `Urwah ibn al-Zubayr. In fact, one such compilation is still available today, and that is Sahifa Hamaam (the Record of Hamaam), wherein the Successor Hamaam bin Munabbi’ transcribed directly from his teacher Abu Hurairah. In fact, researchers have proven that at least forty nine of the first generation Successors documented hadith in book form. These are the second source, after the records of the Companions themselves, for what was gathered afterwards. (Azami, M.M. (1978) Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature. Oak Brook, IL: American Trust)
It was not until the beginning of the second century of the Islamic Era though that the comprehensive gathering of Hadith was started on a large scale. This was done in part out of fear that the Sunnah could be lost as the Companions had spread throughout the rapidly expanding Muslim Empire, and their knowledge was being decentralized in contrast to when the majority of them lived nearer to the city of Madinah. The first people to do this were the famous Hadith scholars Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Hazm (died 120 AH) and Muhammad Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (died 124 AH). These scholars then inspired others, like the great scholar Malik ibn Anas who is famous for his hadith collection, the Muwatta (which is still used and read today), to also thoroughly collect all of the Sunnah of the Prophet.
These early scholars worked diligently to create a system whereby no fabricated or flawed hadith would enter into the body of literature they were preserving. Amongst the earliest and most precise methods of preservation was the practice of a teacher reading to their students from the student’s book, which was either a complete or partial copy of the teacher’s book. Students and scholars would test their teacher’s knowledge by inserting hadith throughout the book before giving it to their teacher for reading. Teachers who didn’t recognize the additions were "denounced and declared untrustworthy" (Azami, M.M. (1978) Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature. Oak Brook, IL: American Trust).
As time went on, students would read back what they had learned to their teachers, in the presence of other students with the same information, thus allowing for anyone with mistakes to fix them, and also so that the students present could also correct another student as necessary. Moreover, after a hadith book had been read in its entirety before a hadith scholar, the scholar would certify the student’s copy by signing it, and the student was then allowed only to transmit the hadith reports recorded in that certified copy.
On the other hand, proof of direct verbal transmission was also absolutely necessary to guarantee that the student had learned the hadith correctly, as merely writing a hadith did not guarantee its exact transmission (due to the complexity of vowelization in the Arabic language which could have an effect on the meaning if not pronounced correctly). In many (but not all) cases, the student would have to memorize the hadith before it would be accepted from him by his teacher. Thus, students would most commonly hear the Hadith from their teacher (Sheikh), and then would later read the Hadith before their Sheikh, who in return either approves their reading or requires them to study it more.
This process of hadith collection and verification continued with increased strength and success until it reached its pinnacle approximately one hundred years later in the work of the hadith master Muhammad ibn Isma`il al-Bukhari, who died in 256 AH. His collection of hadith, officially entitled Al-Jaami’u al-Saheeh Al-Musnad min Hadith Al-Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam wa Sunanihi wa Ayyaamihi, but more commonly known since simply as Saheeh al-Bukhari (the Authentic Collection of Bukhari), would soon become the most famous collection of hadith in all of Islamic history, being regarded ever since its publication as second only to the Quran in authenticity and integrity. It took him sixteen years to compile this book, which Muslim scholars unanimously agreed is authentic and without any errors.
Many people falsely think that Bukhari went about and collected many of these narrations himself without relying on any other research, whereas in reality he depended upon the precise efforts of the multitude of eminent scholars before him as source work for his collection. It is known that he examined over 300,000 hadith reports and gathered from them approximately 3500 for his collection which met only the most stringent requirements. This is not to say that the rest were not trustworthy. The reality is that Bukhari had a juridical, or legal-minded, theme in mind for his collection, and some hadith he reviewed, although authentic, did not have a place in his chapters. Of those that he did include, Bukhari only accepted narrations from the most trustworthy Muslim scholars who had attained the highest degrees of memorization, precision, excellence of character and trustworthiness, and who in turn had narrated from equally reliable scholars, all the way back to the Companions themselves who narrated directly from the Messenger of God. Bukhari himself underwent very stringent testing before his book was accepted by other scholars and students of Islamic knowledge around the Muslim Empire.
Those who have studied recent systems used in the West for recording history will find that there are a great many parallels with the methods used for collecting and validating hadith. In fact, the process of hadith collection has many exclusive factors that unbiased researchers would agree gives it a clear edge over other more modern methods of information preservation. Recent archaeological findings of some of the earliest hadith collections, including some from the first Islamic century, have furthermore demonstrated the total accuracy and integrity of this process, for when these early texts were compared with modern collections, they showed no differences. (Bonner, M. (2008) Jihad in Islamic History. Princeton, New Jersey:Princeton University)
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