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Hadith ('''''' ) are oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of Muhammad . Hadith collections are regarded as important tools for determining the Sunnah , or Muslim way of life, by all traditional Schools Of Jurisprudence . The Arabic plural is ''aḥādīth'' (''''''). In English academic usage, ''hadith'' is often both singular and plural. OVERVIEW Ahadith were originally an oral tradition relevant to the actions and customs of . The text itself came to be known as Matn . The hadith were eventually recorded in written form, had their Isnad Evaluated and were 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 , something that solidified in the 9th Century . These works are still today referred to in matters of Islamic Law and History . HISTORY See Also: History of Hadith Traditions regarding the life of Prophet Muhammad and the early history of Islam were passed down orally for more than a hundred years after the death of Muhammad in 632. Muslim historians say that it was the Caliph Uthman (the third caliph, or successor of Muhammad, who had formerly been Muhammad's secretary), who first urged Muslims both to write down the Qur'an in a fixed form, and to write down the hadith. Uthman's labors 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, termed the '' Fitna '' by Muslim historians. After the fourth caliph, Ali Ibn Abi Talib , was assassinated, control of the Islamic empire was seized by the Umayyad Dynasty in 661. Ummayad rule was interrupted by a second civil war (the '' Second Fitna ''), re-established, then ended in 758, when the Abbasid Dynasty seized the caliphate, to hold 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 possess today were written down at the start of the Abbasid period, more than one hundred years after the death of Muhammad. The 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 narrations and which had been invented for various political or theological purposes. For this purpose, they used a number of techniques which Muslims now call the science of hadith. 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. However, there are many matters of concern, both religious and practical, on which there are no specific Qur'anic rules. 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 upon 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. However, some contemporary Muslims argue that the Qur'an Alone is sufficient. Examples of such Muslims groups are Tolu-e-Islam (Resurgence of Islam), Free Minds, and United Submitters International . Muslims who take the "Qur'an alone" viewpoint are regarded as deviant by mainstream Muslim scholars, and by the vast majority of Muslims. Hadith-trusting Muslims argue that many Qur'anic instructions are impossible to fulfill without guidance from the ahadith. (The Qur'an does not, for example, specify how many prayer cycles constitute fulfillment of each of the daily prayers. See Salat .) It is also important to note that most Muslims claim that the Qur'an cannot be fully explained by itself alone or read with complete understanding -- which is why the Hadith is referred to as the "second source" of Islam. While the Qur'an states "We have made it (the Qur'an) easy to understand and in your own tongue (language) may you take heed." (Qur'an 44:58), there are great debates between Muslims regarding the views stated in the Qur'an, and also those stated in the Hadith. The origins of some verses and statements in the Hadith cannot be verified as regards their source of origin. Muslim Scholar s classify hadith relating to Muhammad as follows:
There are also hadith relating to the words and deeds of the companions, but they may not have the same weight as those about Muhammad. Many actually believe that the Hadith was written hundreds of years after Muhammed died. 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:
Some of these accounts are also found as hadith; some aren't. For a Non-Muslim historian, these are all simply historical sources; for the Muslim scholar, hadith have a special status. They cite Sura (Yusuf Ali translation): They take this and other Qur'anic verses to require Muslims to follow authentic ''hadith''. However, a growing number of " Quran-only " Muslims disagree with this view and interpret these verses differently; they argue that the hadith are of human creation and have no authority. Their argument is strengthened by verses of the Quran which criticise the following of "hadith other than quran", the Arabic word "hadith" means "sayings". SCIENCE OF HADITH See Also: science of hadith The most common technique consists of a careful examination of the . Isnads are carefully scrutinized to see if the chain is possible (for example, making sure that all transmitters and transmittees were known to be alive and living in the same area at the time of transmission to make sure they met ) and if the transmitters are reliable. Examples of Hadith See Also: List of Muslim reports
VIEWS Currently there is little communication between the world of Muslim hadith scholarship and Western academia. Muslim scholars reject the Westerners as Orientalists who are hostile to religion in general and Islam in particular. Western academics tend to dismiss Muslim scholars as irrelevant, bound as they are to a millennia-old technique of hadith evaluations which modern scholarship regards as out-dated. However, some Muslim scholars have undergone Western academic training and attempted to mediate between the traditional Muslim and the secular Western view. Notable among these was Fazlur Rahman (1919-1988) who argued that while the chain of transmission of the hadith may often be spurious, the content, the Matn , can still be used to understand how Islam can be lived in the modern world. Liberal Movements Within Islam tend to agree with Rahman's views to varying degrees. Muslim view Muslims who accept hadith believe that trusted hadith are in most cases the words of Muhammad and not the word of God, like the Qur'an. Hadith Qudsi forms a partial exception; these (few) hadith are said to be recount divine revelations given to Muhammad but not included in the Qur'an . However, the words (as opposed to the substance) are believed to Muhammad's own, and not divinely inspired. While both hadith and Qur'an have been translated, most Muslims believe that translations of the Qur'an are inherently deficient, amounting to little more than a commentary upon the text. There is no such belief regarding hadith. Practicing Muslims cleanse themselves ( Wudu ) before reading or reciting the Qur'an; there is no such requirement for reading or reciting hadith. Even for Muslims who accept the hadith, they are lower in rank when compared the Qur'an. Sunni view nine volume collection, ''"The most authentic book after the Holy Qur'an"'' according to many Sunni Muslims]] The Sunni canon of hadith took its final form close to three centuries after the death of Muhammad. Later scholars may have debated the authenticity of particular hadith but the authority of the canon as a whole was not questioned. This canon, called the Six Major Hadith Collections , includes: Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim are usually considered the most reliable of these collections. There is some debate over whether the sixth member of this canon should be Ibn Maja or the ''Muwatta'' of Imam Malik , which is the earliest hadith canon but predates much of the methodology developed by the classic hadith scholars. While there are still many traditional Muslims who rely on the Ulema and its long tradition of hadith collection and criticism, other contemporary Sunni Muslims are willing to reconsider tradition. Liberal Muslims are most apt to trust the individual conscience, but there are also Salafi s who demand the same freedom. The Salafis claim that the ordinary believer can trust his or her own judgment (even if he or she is not trained in Islamic scholarship) if he or she relies on Bukhari and Muslim, the commentators deemed to be most correct (''sahih''), and ignores the weak hadith. Shi'a view Shi'a Muslims trust traditions transmitted by Muhammad's descendants through Fatima Zahra . There are various sects within Shi'a Islam and within each sect, various traditions of scholarship. Each sect, and each scholar, may differ as to the hadith to be accepted as reliable and those to be rejected. Four prominent Shi'a hadith collections are:
And also the 10th Century Nahj Al-Balagha . Ibadi view Ibadi Islam (found mainly in the Arabian kingdom of Oman ) accepts many Sunni hadith, while rejecting others, and accepts some hadith not accepted by Sunnis. Ibadi jurisprudence is based only on the hadith accepted by Ibadis, which are far less numerous than those accepted by Sunnis. Several of Ibadism's founding figures - in particular Jabir Ibn Zayd - were noted for their hadith research, and Jabir ibn Zayd is accepted as a reliable narrator by Sunni scholars as well as Ibadi ones. The principal hadith collection accepted by Ibadis is '' al-Jami'i al-Sahih '', also called ''Musnad al-Rabi ibn Habib'', as rearranged by Abu Ya'qub Yusuf b. Ibrahim al-Warijlani. A large proportion of its narrations are via Jabir ibn Zaid or Abu Yaqub; most are reported by Sunnis, while several are not. The total number of hadith it contains is 1005, and an Ibadi tradition recounted by al-Rabi has it that there are only 4000 authentic prophetic hadith. The rules used for determining the reliability of a hadith are given by Abu Ya'qub al-Warijlani, and are largely similar to those used by Sunnis; they criticise some of the companions ( Sahaba ), believing that some were corrupted after the reign of the first two caliphs. The Ibadi jurists accept hadith narrating the words of Muhammad's companions as a third basis for legal rulings, alongside the Qur'an and hadith relating Muhammad's words. Non-Muslim view Early Western exploration of Islam consisted primarily of translation of the Qur'an and a few histories, often supplemented with disparaging commentary. In the nineteenth century, scholars made greater attempts at impartiality, and translated and commented upon a greater variety of texts. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Western scholars of Islam started to critically engage with the Islamic texts, subjecting them to the same agnostic, searching scrutiny that had previously been applied to Christian texts (see Higher Criticism ). Ignaz Goldziher is the best known of these turn-of-the-century Iconoclasts , who also included D. S. Margoliuth , Henri Lammens , and Leone Caetani . Goldziher writes, in his ''Muslim Studies'': The next generations of Western scholars were also sceptics, on the whole: Joseph Schacht , in his ''Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence'' (1959), argued that isnads going back to Muhammad were in fact ''more'' likely to be spurious than isnads going back to the companions. John Wansbrough , in the 1970s, and his students Patricia Crone and Michael Cook were even more sweeping in their dismissal of Muslim tradition, arguing that even the Qur'an was likely to have been collected later than claimed. Contemporary Western scholars of hadith include:
Madelung has immersed himself in the hadith literature and has made his own selection and evaluation of tradition. Having done this, he is much more willing to trust hadith than many of his contemporaries. Some quotes:
Harald Motzki :http://people.uncw.edu/bergh/par246/L21RHadithCriticism.htm Gregor Schoeler :Gregor Schoeler, Berg (2003), p. 21 CRITICISM The hadith Ahmed, Vol. 1, page 171 says: "Do not write down anything of me except the Qur'an. Whoever writes other than that should delete it." Some have interpreted this as the Hadith should never have been written. However, according to most scholars and researchers, this hadith was specific to the time when the Qur'an was still being written. The reason behind this command was to prevent any risk of confusing the Qur'an with Hadith. However, once the revelation was completed and it was certain that no more verses were going to be descended, it was permissible — and even an obligation — to write down the Hadith to preserve it throughout time, because, had the memorisers of the Hadith passed away before writing it down, the Hadiths could have disappeared. Muslims have been ordered to follow the Sunna of Muhammad because it is an order clearly stated in the Qur'an in several places such as in Surah al-Imran (3) verses 32 and 132, Surah an-Nisa' (4) verse 59, Surah al-Maidah (5) verse 92, Surah al-Anfal (8) verses 1, 20, 46, Surah an-Noor (24) verses 54, 56, Surah Muhammad (47) verse 33, etc. (IslamiCity.com) SEE ALSO REFERENCES Pro-hadith
Hadith collections
Supporting hadith study
Critical of hadith study
Hadith study - General
Other
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