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This post will reveal to you the truth about the history of hadith.
I’m sure you’ve heard people say ‘In Bukhari 3172 Person A narrated from Person B who narrated it from Person C that Prophet Muhammad said”. It’s all a bit confusing right, for us Muslims who lack knowledge?
Don’t worry, I’m going to enlighten you with some knowledge that I’ve learnt on the history of hadith from knowledgeable scholars of hadith. I promise you it will all start to make sense, trust me on this!
In this post, you will learn the history of hadith from the lifetime of the Prophet and a couple of generations later. You’ll find answers to questions like: Was hadith written in the lifetime of the Prophet? Who wrote hadith first? How was hadith recorded and documented through different generations? How was it passed on through generations with zero errors?
This post will completely break down the history of hadith for a beginner.
The Truth On The History Of Hadith Revealed
Before I get into the history of hadith here are some terms you need to be familiar with:
Sahaba/Companion– Anyone who met the Prophet Muhammad whilst a Muslim and died as a Muslim and there is no time limit for it.
Sunnah– The way of the Prophet Muhammad everything he said, did and approved of. His entire life and practises.
Hadith– A record of the words and actions of Prophet Muhammad. So, put simply a record of what he said and did. Hadith literally means any type of speech or spoken words in the Arabic language.
Now let’s dive into a really quick overview of hadith…
Hadith is needed in order to explain the Quran. For example, the Quran which is the speech of God says to pray whereas the hadith the speech and actions of Muhammad tells you how to pray.
I like to see it like this, the creator of Universe sent down his guidance with a teacher. A teacher who will teach you how to follow the guidance in your daily life through real-life example. So, imagine rejecting the teacher and just taking the notes. You’re going to struggle to learn, understand and embody everything.
Every hadith is split into two parts: Sanad and Matn
SANAD– the chain of narrators the hadith has been passed through.
MATN– the text of the hadith itself.
There’s something called ‘ILM UL RIJAL‘ which is when scholars of hadith study the chain of narrators for every hadith. They look into the lives of every single individual listed in that chain to see if their trustworthy and we can rely on their words.
After researching the chains of every hadith thoroughly scholars placed hadiths into different categories:
- Sahih– The hadith is absolutely authentic and the chain is connected, every narrator meets the criterion of authenticity.
- Hasan– The hadith is good but not at the level of sahih because someone’s reliability in the chain hasn’t been affirmed yet.
- Daif– A hadith that is weak so scholars reject it. This means one of the narrators has been criticised and the chain is broken.
- Mutawattir– A hadith that has been narrated by so many people that it is impossible they could all agree upon a lie.
- Ahad– A hadith that is not authentic on its own but is when supported by other evidence. This has its own further categories.
Now You’re Equipped For The Truth Here’s The History Of Hadith In The 1st Century
The companions gave immense importance to the sunnah of Prophet Muhammad. They completely followed it, loved and honoured it.
They were very diligent when saying anything about him. They didn’t just narrate but they ensured every time they did it was 100% correct and verified. Here are statements of some companions that is evidence for this:
Ath Ta’ab said, I heard Anas bin Malik(slave of the prophet for 10 years) say: “If I was not scared for me to do a mistake I would have told you of something which I heard from the Prophet”.
Amr Ibn Sharaheel Sha’bi and Muhammad Ibn Sireen said, Abdullahi Ibn Ma’sud’s face would change when he said something about the Prophet he would say “This or something like this”.
Did The Companions Write Hadith At The Time Of Prophet Muhammad?
At the time of Prophet Muhammad the companions took knowledge directly from him and held onto that knowledge through memorisation which was the main method. Most of the companions were memorisers but they also wrote hadith in the Prophet’s lifetime.
Memorisation is a very effective method of preserving knowledge because if the companions completely relied on writing and that got lost everything would be lost.
Also, it’s important to note that the Arabs norm was to memorise, they were incredible memorisers. Before Islam they would memorise thousands of lines of poetry. Memorisation was how they transmitted information in their society.
Compare that to our times we document things largely digitally and we can’t even remember phone numbers because of how reliant we are on technology. It’s so bad!
Orientalists say that no hadith was written in the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad. It was written 200-300 years after his death.
Let me debunk right now with some textual evidence:
The famous hadith of Abu Hurairah:
“ No one used to write more than I did except Abdullahi Ibn Amr Ibn As, no one had more hadith than I did except Abdullahi Ibn Amr Ibn As because he used to write when I didn’t write.” A companion came to the Prophet and said” O prophet what you said write it for me I want it written”. The messenger said “ Write for Abi shah” At the time of Ali they claim he has knowledge only he knows that the Prophet told. The people told Ali this and on the Friday sermon he stood up and said: “Anyone who claims we(Ahlul Bayt) have unique knowledge which is not found in the Quran then he’s a liar. The only thing I have about the Prophet is my suhuf." (scrolls with hadiths written in it).
Abdullahi Ibn Amr Ibn As, Abu Hurairah, Ali and Abi Shah were companions of the Prophet, so they met him and directly learnt from him. These statements show the importance the companions gave to writing hadith and that they ACTUALLY wrote hadith in the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad.
4 Ways The Companions Documented Hadith And Passed It On To The Ummah
- They urged people to memorise hadith. The two types of memorisation was memorising by heart and memorising from books.
- They would write hadiths to send to eachother to use for judgement in their everyday life.
- They urged their students to write down hadiths whenever they said them. They wouldn’t let their students sit there and not write anything.
- The companions had hadiths written in scrolls which is a material similar to paper but isn’t paper.
The companions would write hadith only to memorise it. Their intention wasn’t to compile them into a book. Authorship began after the companions time.
If you bring all the hadiths written from amongst the companions and you took those, that’s exactly the hadith books written for us today.
READ MORE: The Remarkable History Of The Quran That Proves It’s Preservation
Ways The Students Of The Companions Recorded, Compiled And Passed On HADITH
The time of the companions and the students of the companions was different. Disputes and different groups were born like Shia and Khawarij and people were no longer trustworthy at the time of the students of the companions. So, they had to do more to honour and protect the sunnah and hadith, they did this through:
- Memorisation
- They wrote hadiths on scrolls
- They encouraged others to memorise, write and verify hadith.
- They studied the chain of narrators the hadith was passed through. Who did they hear it from? Who did he hear it from? And so on, until it reached the source Prophet Muhammad.
- They did thorough research into the biography of every individual listed in a chain. A background check to see if they were trustworthy and we can accept their report.
- They recorded their findings into hadith books. They wrote books of hadith and books entirely dedicated to the biographies of narrators. So, any narrator you want to find out about you will find an in-depth biography about them.
- Scholars also travelled to collect hadiths leaving their family, homes and everything. Some for months others for years. Keeping in mind there was no planes, trains, cars or anything other than walking or occassionally taking a riding beast like a camel. Their travelling wasn’t short most of the time the distance was country from country and longer.
In this century, the leader Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz commanded Muhammad Ibn Shihab Al Zuhri who was a great scholar of hadith with an immaculate memory to compile together all the hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad into a book. So, he authored the first book of hadith.
This book is sadly amongst the Islamic books destroyed by the Mongols who invaded the Muslim world. However, most if not all the hadiths written in the 1st Century have been compiled into books we have today.
Here’s a quick story on a scholar who travelled to collect hadith:
A student of a companion called Bakhi Ibn Makhlad who lived in Al Andalus(Spain). He travelled from Spain to Baghdad(Iraq) on foot to meet Imam Ahmed. It took him months to get there. There were no cars, trains or planes.
Once he arrived he found out Imam Ahmed was on house arrest by the government. He got extremely sad so he said “I came to the masjid sad, heartbroken I travelled for months I came to Baghdad to meet Ahmed ibn Hanbal and I’m told he’s on house arrest and he can’t meet anybody.” He heard a man in the masjid reciting hadiths he was criticising some narrators of hadith. So, Bakhi called this man and told him what do you say about this man Ahmed Ibn Hanbal. He said “Somebody like me is asked about Ahmed, ask Ahmed about me”. His sadness increased even more. So he went to Ahmed’s house because his money was running out, he couldn’t stay in Baghdad for too long.
He met Imam Ahmed in his house and said to him “I’m a stranger, I’m not from your town.” Ahmed said “Where are you from.” Bakhi said ”I’m from Baghdad.” Ahmed replied “That is a very far place.” Ahmed said “I’m imprisoned and the leader doesn’t allow me to narrate so I can’t narrate to you”. Bakhi said “ Listen, every day I will come to you as a beggar and I will knock on your door just tell me one or two hadiths and I’ll leave you.” Ahmed looked at him for a while and then said ”Okay”. Bakhi came to Ahmed and took hadiths bit by bit 3 or 4 hadiths until he had the biggest Musnad in Islam. Even bigger than Imam Ahmed’s but it got lost when the Mongols came into the Muslim world and threw it into the ocean.
Bakhi eventually went back to Andalus and at that time the knowledge of hadith wasn’t strong in Andalus, Bakhi brought hadith to Andalus.
Recording And Transmission Of Hadith In The 2nd Century
The two main types of people who recorded and transmitted hadith in the 2nd Century were:
- The younger students of the companions as majority of the older students of the companions had passed away.
- The generation after the students of the companions(Students of the Tabi’in).
In the 2nd Century books became more specific and ordered in different ways. For example, by topics. Books previously contained just hadiths of the Prophet but now they also contained statements of the companions and students of the companions. The previous scrolls of the companions were being added to the bigger books.
Amongst these books the most famous one Imam Malik’s Muwattah was born.
Recording Of Hadith In The 3rd Century
In the 3rd century, books evolved so instead of having a book that contained hadiths of the prophet as well as statements of the companions and students of the companions all mixed together which happened in the 2nd century, books became even more specific.
There were books only on hadiths of Prophet Muhammad and then separate books only on the statements of the companions and separate books on the statements of the students of the companions.
In this era, different types of hadith books started coming out as well like Musnad, Sahih, Sunan and more.
The sahih of this era were Bukhari and Muslim. The 4 sunan were: Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, Tirmidhi, Ibn Nasaee.
Today scholars all reference hadiths from 6 main hadith books which they unanimously agreed upon these 6 are: Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan Tirmidhi, Sunan Abu Dawud, Sunan Nasaee and Sunan Ibn Majah.
Also in this era, great noble scholars came out whose knowledge of hadith was immaculate and not like the average man. They were elites in hadith sciences and their gradings. Some names: Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim, Ahmed Ibn Hanbal, Yahya Ibn Ma’in and more.
Today there are hadith manuscripts that have been found in the West. Like Bukhari’s great works and pages of Imam Malik’s Muwattah that you can see.
Recording of Hadith In The 4th, 5th Century Onwards
Once the 3rd Century ended everything regarding hadith was written and documented. So, any new hadiths after that were 99% of the time weak or fabricated.
More different types of books came out but these books were based on the works of the previous books written by Scholars of Hadith. The Authors were either summarising a hadith book or explaining a hadith book, adding on or taking away. There was nothing new. They were mainly designed to help non Arabic speaking Muslims to understand hadith better.
For example, books of fabricated hadiths, books on understanding hadith terminology, extra hadith from one book converted into another and more.
This is the end of the history of hadith. I’ve summarised from start to finish the true history of hadith to help you understand and appreciate the blood, sweat and tears that the great scholars of hadith went through to bring hadith to you and me. Any mistakes are from me, Allah and His Messenger are free from errors.
[The source of all my knowledge: www.islamiclessonsmadeeasy.com.au, Ustadh Abdulrahman Hassan and Sheikh Muhammad Huzaifah.]
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