What Makes a “Hadith” “Sahih”

Introduction

In this short article, I discuss the issue of the authenticity of Hadith, or Hadiz (or Hadeeth) since the terminology is written in many different ways in the English language. In a sense, I’ll be challenging the concept of rejecting a Hadith, any Hadith.

What is a Hadith

Wikipedia says that a Hadith ( aḥādīth; lit. “Narrative”) are narrations concerning the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hadith are regarded by traditional Islamic schools of jurisprudence as important tools for understanding the Qur’an and in matters of jurisprudence.[2] Hadith were evaluated and gathered into large collections mostly during the reign of Umar ibn AbdulAziz during the 8th and 9th centuries. These works are referred to in matters of Islamic law and history to this day. The two main denominations of Islam, Shi`ism and Sunnism, have different sets of Hadith collections.

I will not discuss the different sets of Hadith for Sunni and Shi’a Islam. Rather, my discussion will focus of the concept of the authenticity of the Hadith. The first observation that the reader may have noticed is that Hadith was collected no less than 200 years after Prophet Muhammad tread this earth. So, it is easy to see that a Muslim, any Muslim, can justifiably reject all Hadith. However, this is a rejectionist attitude I do not ascribe to. Hadiths do provide stories about how Prophet Muhammad did things, and let us know how Muslims lived during the time of the prophet. Hadiths are also important to let Muslims know many things about their religion, and give them guidance on “How to” in many aspects of the faith.

Important historical details regarding the development of hadith

There are two important concepts in the study of Hadith. One is called “Riwayat”(Narration), and the other is “Dirayat” (Knowledge or “Sufficient Qualification”).

Let me clarify those two important concepts:

Riwayat (Narration): This has to do with the continued chain of narrators from the most recent, all the way to the time of the prophet, including a complete list of the persons who told the Hadith from the prophet’s time up to the last narrators. If some discontinuity exists along the way, then the Hadith itself is considered “weaker” than it would have been if no continuity gaps exists.

Dirayat (Knowledge or “Sufficient Qualification”): This has to do with the reliability of all persons involved in the chain of narrations from the prophet’s time up to the last person in the chain. That is to say that those narrators had to be of good character (honest, trustworthy, pious, moral,etc.). If a blemish exists in one of them, then this translates to a “weaker” Hadith

Please note that such standards for hadith do not stand critical scrutiny. They appear good, but appearance is so deceptive. How can anyone know that all those narrators never lied? How can anyone know that someone who lied before was telling the truth about the specific Hadith? It is in fact impossible to judge the qualification of every narrator with a 100% degree of confidence. In addition, human memory of those narrators is like ours. How many times did our memory fail us. How many times did I think I put the dishes on the shelf, only to discover they were still on the sink or in the dishwasher! We all have our memory failing. We think we put something (i.e. keys) in a certain place. Then we look everywhere, and we just can’t find them. There is no reason to assume that those narrators were any better. If this is the case, then they may have remembered things in a different way. This may seem simple, but when you have four or five or six people in the chain of narrations, the problem gets more pronounced very quickly.

Do we need to reject Hadith:

I do not think a rejection of Hadith is a good strategy. After all, Hadith gives us a window as to how Prophet Muhammad and the people surrounding him lived. However, my above analysis shows that no Hadith is trustworthy 100%. One has to use common sense in judging if a Hadith is acceptable or not. This is the best we can do. I do realize that “common sense” is not understood by everyone in the same way, but it is still the case that this is the best we can do. One good common sense is that if the same story of a Hadith is repeated many times, it must be true. For example we can be almost 100% sure that Muhammad married Ayesha when she was six years old and slept with her when she was eight years and nine months old. The reason for that is very simple: there are numerous Hadiths narrating the same story. Hence, it must be true.

Some Historical Notes about Hadith

Please note that Muslim scholars do not agree on which Hadith is authentic or not. The problem is more pronounced between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims as they prefer to rely on different collections of Hadith for the most part. But even within the same Islamic sect, there is no group of Hadiths that all scholars agree on them being “Sahih”. This is due to the fact that each scholar (Alem) has his own criteria of acceptance. This criteria is usually highly influenced by the ideological as well as the political beliefs of that scholar. Whether Muslim scholars like it or not, the Hadith “acceptance” criteria ends up being subjective and highly influenced by the ideological/political/historical situation in the Muslim scholar’s environment.

When the Mu’tazilah lost the battle of “reason” in Islam, irrationality and following the letter of the Qur’an and Hadith ruled the day. Al-Ghazaly’s book “Tahafut Al-Falasifa” was the straw the broke the Camel’s back of rationality in Islamic history. After the Mu’tazilah, a group following Islamic tradition called “Ahl Al-Sunna WalJama’ah” enjoyed the support of the political authority. They became the authority on what to accept and what to reject regarding Hadith.

Concluding Remarks

It is obvious that Muslim groups as well as Muslim scholars do not agree on which Hadith is authentic or not. They do not agree on the what criteria to use to judge the degree of strength or weakness of Hadiths. But even so, Hadiths are important in understanding Muhammad and Islam. In fact, without Hadith, Muslims won’t be able to practice some the basic tenets of their faith.

Another important factor is that those early Muslims who collected Hadith were pious people, and did report Hadiths with a sincere academic honesty. Because of this factor, I find it necessary that Hadith should be accepted. In fact, one can accept all Hadith, and I daresay, no Muslim scholar can say such a policy is wrong. After all, who is to say what is the correct criteria to accept Hadith. We have already seen that the concept of “common sense” is not one agreed upon by everyone.

Posted by Ibn Kammuna on November 10 2010. Filed under Op-Ed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.