Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

The word hadith (pl. ahadith), occurring 23 times in the Koran, is a noun formed from the verb hadatha means to be new. The Hebrew hadash carries the same meaning. From this followed the use of the term for a piece of news, tale, story or a report. The story tellers were also called hudath. The Muslims since the very lifetime of the Prophet called the report with regard to his sayings as the hadith.

The Prophet of Islam was not only the transmitter of the Koran, but he also interpreted it. The only difference between the ordinary expressions of the Prophet and his revelations consists in the fact that the former are Divine in content alone, the latter are Divine in form as well. The ground for the view is afforded by the Koran: "And We have revealed you the exhortation (i.e., the Koran) in order that you may explain to men what has been revealed to them" (16:46).

The word sunnah means way, custom, habit of life and technically, it is defined as the utterances of the Prophet other than the Koran, known as hadiths, or his personal acts and acts of sayings of others tacitly approved by him. Sunnah has also another technical meaning in reference to religious duties, namely, that which is recommended, although not obligatory, according to the classification of the Shariah values. The term hadith conveys not only the sayings of the Prophet, but also his actions as well as what he tolerated among his Companions. By toleration we mean the seeing by the Prophet of a thing being done by a Companion and keeping silent over the deed or even explicitly approving it. The two words, hadith and sunnah, either of which might with some justification be translated "tradition" though used commonly, differ in their significance. Hadith really means a report representing an account of what happened, whereas Sunnah means a practice or custom. In short, the Sunnah is what was practiced. Since Sunnah means the practices and precepts of the Prophet, and hadith tells what was the Sunnah, the latter enshrines the Sunnah.

The Koran says, "And We have revealed you the exhortation (i.e., the Koran) in order that you may explain to men what has been revealed to them" (16:46). It means that to the Prophet alone was the solution known and the knowledge he communicated to his followers is pretty clear from his saying or doing. Thus, a number of his sayings were marshaled to explain the Koranic verse. He unfolded the meaning and communicated to his Companions. It was from his mouth that they learnt the meaning of the Koranic verses. The Companions handed down by words of mouth to their followers, the tab'in, who in their turn passed it to their followers, the taba tab'in. In the meantime, the art of writing became common and the compilers henceforth collected the sayings of the Prophet related by the Companions.

It was laid down that the narrator of a tradition must also repeat its isnad or chain of authorities, as : "I heard from such one, who heard from such one," and so on, until the chain reached the Prophet himself. Each person in this isnad must have been well known for his good character and retentive memory.

Many scholars from various angles prepared numerous collections of the hadiths, and different methods were followed in the arrangement of the material. Two models were mainly adopted. In the first category, hadith traced to each Companion was put together under his name, no matter what their theme might be. Such a collection is called masnad, therefore, the titles of the chapters are Masnad of Abu Huraira, Masnad of Anas bin Malik, etc. The most famous compilation in this category is Masnad of Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal. It contains 40,000 hadiths, of which 10,000 have occurred more than once. The second category of hadiths is the grouping into chapters and sub-chapters according to their themes. For instance, we find chapters on purity, prayers, fasting, zakat, hajj, marriage, so on. The best known work of this type is al-Muwwatta of Imam Malik, which contains 1720 hadiths. Another compiler of this category is al-Musannaf of Abdul Razak al-Sanani, which has been published in eleven volumes, containing 11,033 hadiths. The compilers introduced each hadith with its own isnad, which means the series of authorities, who may be called narrators or transmitters or muhaddis.

The early authorities of hadiths, who scrutinized each hadith, both the text and its series, included in their compilations only those, which they believe to be genuine, and rejected those which they suspected as fabricated. The authorities on hadiths said that the text should have no conflict with the Koran. The series (isnad) of authorities should be unbroken and each narrator mentioned in it must be known for his knowledge, piety and memory. Upon the beginning of the 3rd century of Islam, compilation of hadiths did not discriminate between authentic hadiths and other lesser than authentic, so the hadiths were mixed up. Muhammad bin Ismail al-Bukhari was the first to conceive the idea of compiling the authentic hadiths, and called his collection as Sahih.

The first books of Sunni hadith arranged according to the chapters of law for easy reference appeared in the ninth century. The six such books accepted by the Sunnis are as under:-

1. al-Sahih by Bukhari (d. 256/870), collected 600,000 but selected 2762 hadiths.

2. al-Sahih by al-Muslim (d. 261/815), collected 300,000 but selected 4348 hadiths.

3. al-Sunan by Ibn Majah (d. 273/886), collected 400,000 but selected 4000 hadiths.

4. al-Sunan by Abu Daud (d. 275/889), collected 500,000 but selected 4800 hadiths.

5. al-Jami al-Sahih by Tirmizi (d. 279/892), collected 300,000 but selected 3115 hadiths.

6. al-Sunan by Nisai (d. 303/915), collected 200,000 but selected 4321 hadiths.

It means that 2300,000 hadiths were collected altogether, but selection was made for 23346 hadiths. The Sunnis call their above six collections as Sihah as-Sittah or al-Kutub al-Sittah (the six books).

There are four early collections of the hadith among the Shi'ites, compiled by the following three authors, known as the Three Muhammads.

1. Al-Kafi fi Ilm al-Din by Muhammad al-Kulaini (d. 328/939)

2. Man la Yahduruhu al-Faqih by Muhammad ibn Babuya (d. 381/991)

3. Tahdhib al-Ahkam by Muhammad Abu Jafar at-Tusi (d. 460/1067)

4. Al-Istibsar by the same author.

The Shi'ites call the above four collections as al-Usul al-Arba'h or al-Kutub al-Arba'h (the four books)

In addition, there are three other books belonging to more modern times and are highly regarded in this field. Their authors have also been named as a modern Three Muhammads:-

1. Al-Wafi by Muhammad bin Murtada, known as Mulla Muhsin-i Fayd (d. 1091/1680)

2. Wasa'il ash-Shi'a by Muhammad bin Hasan, known as al-Hurr al-Amili (d. 1104/1692)

3. Bihar al-Anwar by Muhammad Bakir Majlisi (d. 1110/1699)

Even more modern is the collection Mustadrak al-Wasa'il (The rectification of al-Wasa'il) by Hussain an-Nuri at-Tabarsi (d. 1320/1902).