Somewhat related and hence decided to post here. Hadith rejector: following hadith is shirk. Sunni muslim: The holy quran that you claim to believe in was preserved by hadith followers through memorization and writing. Are you saying the holy quran that you have came to you from mushriks who rejected God's guidance? How can you trust the holy quran is true, if according to you, people who brought it to us through memorization, writing and printing, were misguided? Hadith rejector: God Himself preserved the holy quran as He said so in the holy quran itself. Your view that the holy quran was preserved by men is false. Sunni muslim: How do you know the verse that says God preserved it was not added by those people(mushriks according you and therefore untrustworthy) themselves? Is the above argument by the sunni muslim acceptable and within the limits of shariah?
let us say someone mentioned a narrator "ahmad ibn miqdam" in the chain. this ahmad would have to be known and information about him, his teachers/upstream narrators, and those who narrated from him were to be identified. and then an appraisal by contemporaries would also be considered. ---- there is a side note to this question. i don't know if you are trying to draw parallels or hint that i (abu hasan) is "unknown" and hence my posts should be treated as 'daeef' or 'mawduu'. the answer to this objection is that i am not a hadith narrator - and you are not examining a chain of hitherto unidentified narration. whatever i quote is from books, which anyone can pick and verify. of course if i ever tell you of a hadith : "narrated to us our (teacher) - from (his teacher) from his teacher...from...from...from ibn Hajar asqalani....from...until.. sahabi" AND if that hadith is not found in any of the compendiums, it is indeed weak and unreliable. but if it is a hadith that is found in bukhari - the chain could be treated as unreliable, but the hadith in itself is sahih as i am quoting from bukhari. examination of ruwwat in our times - in fact, after the 6-7th century has no significance and has zero benefit, so long as the hadith can be found in any of the well-known hadith compilations. ---- interesting: imam ahmad's greatness and his being hujjah is undisputed. many of his teachers also narrate via him, such as imam shafiyi. but imam shafiyi does not name him - and instead says: 'i have heard a thiqah narrate..' and here, imam shafiyi's standing and word is proof that the "unknown" narrator is truly reliable. ---- wAllahu a'alam wa ilmuhu atam.
You said : "narrators had to be well-known and contemporaries would write about them" Hazrat , could you please elaborate on it ? this would be my last question on this thread . i won't bother you people much .
so there's no authentic or even da3eef riwayah on harees? https://sunniport.com/index.php?threads/harees.14768/ i linked to this page on the mentioned thread, and it seems to mention the same ibn hajjaj you're talking about as having been the fabricator
dua'fa of uqayli, 4/136. mualla ibn abdul rahman al-wasiti accepted close to his death: "...i have forged 90 hadith to prove the superiority of (mawla) ali ibn abi talib"
there are many ways of identifying a forgery. our ulama were very perspicacious, extremely intelligent and were stalwarts in the department of critical enquiry. they couldn't be hoodwinked easily. i.e., even if some ulama were duped once in a while, others followed up and ensured that narrations were rigorously authenticated. principles of hadith sciences, classification and nomenclature of hadith, the rules of classification etc are so complex, well-defined and nuanced that --- not true. narrators had to be well-known and contemporaries would write about them. in fact, reports of unknown narrators can be classed as weak on the very basis that one or more narrator is unknown. if an unknown narrator (maj'hul) figures in a chain, that will be taken with caution - and unless a similar report comes through a stronger chain (meaning all narrators are known and trustworthy, or known to be truthful etc.) this level of academic rigor is not found in any culture or science. especially in history. for example, no one actually cares whether a historian is an alcoholic or known to be a liar or a man of low morals or has inclination towards a particular idea and hence tries to concoct 'history'. you need not look further than the deplorable state of indian academia - reduced to the level of bullshit* (gobar in hindi/urdu) in modi's india. ---- in hadith sciences, the narrator's personal integrity and truthfulness is paramount. additional attributes like his zuhd (abstemiousness) and piety accentuate the quality of the narration. the narrator should not only be truthful but also have a good memory, the ability of being accurate in reporting (DabTihi wa naqlihi). a very good introduction to hadith sciences in english (english translation of tahsin al-wusul of mufti aslam raza by a sunni mawlana in the UK): https://archive.org/download/tahsin-al-wusul/Tahsin Al Wusul.pdf === there are ways of identifying forgeries. a forgery is identified by the signs of forgery in the chain of authorisation/narration such as: 1. the narrator is a well known liar; or is famous for circulating false reports (many of our celebrity speakers in today's time will fall into this category) 2. the narrator accepts or admits that he has committed fraud and forged hadith 3. conditions that eventually point to forgery (i.e. implausibility of the narrator's claim - see snippet in blue below) 4. there are other aspects to the narrator/narration that point to a forgery. such as muhammad ibn hajjaj al-nakha'i who forged a hadith on the superiority of harisa (a dish) - and he was a peddler of harisah; so he was motivated by greed of profit. ==== ibn al-jawzi in his compendium: 'mawDu'at' says mentioning that forgeries are identified based on the narrator's own admission or the implausibility of the narrator's claim: when a narrator reports from a shaykh (upstream narrator) and their meeting is not established or was born after his (i.e. shaykh's) death or did not enter that place where he claims to have heard that hadith. for example, ma'mun inb ahmad al-harawi claimed that he heard hisham ibn ammar [narrate hadith]. hafiz ibn Hibban asked him: "when did you enter the levant? (shaam). he (ma'mun) said: in the year 250 AH. ibn Hibban said: in that case, the hisham that you claim to narrate from died in 245 AH. similarly: abdullah ibn is'Haq al-kirmani (claimed that he) narrates from muhammad ibn abi yaqub. he was told muhammad died 9 years before you were born. similarly: muhammad ibn hatim al-kathi (claims to) narrrate from abd ibn Humayd; and (imam) hakim abu abdullah commented: "this shaykh heard from abd ibn humayd 13 years after his death!" --- in the preface of sahih muslim: mu'alla ibn irfan said: narrated to us abu wa'yil and he said: ibn mas'ud came out (and we saw him) in Siffin. abu nu'aym - i.e., faDl ibn dukayn said commenting on mu'alla's narration: "so was resurrected after he had passed away?" this was because abdullah ibn mas'ud passed away in 32 or 33 AH - three years before the end of the khilafah of sayyiduna uthman ended (and siffin happened after his martyrdom in the time of mawla ali.) ---- the other ways of identifying forgeries is in the text of the hadith itself. 1. rakakatu'l lafz - the wording is very flimsy and highly improbable that the king of eloquence, sayyiduna RasulAllah sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam would say such a thing. hadith masters who criticise hadith on this basis are familiar with the style and language used by the master sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam. 2. rakakatu'l ma'ana - the implied meaning is silly or nonsensical: "the ark of nuh alayhis salam went around the ka'abah seven times and prayed two raka'ah near the maqam" 3. clear contradiction to the qur'an or established hadith such as: "an adulterer will not enter paradise, nor will seven generations from his line.." 4. contradiction of well-known historical timelines: 5. a hadith that supports the viewpoint / aqidah position of the narrator. [like irfan shah's current mazh'b being tafdil and he narrates this purported hadith] ==== there are many such criteria to classify a hadith as forgery. i have just shared a breif sample. wAllahu a'alam. ======= * they consider cowshit to be more valuable than the kohinoor diamond; and one who said it (dumbwit patra) is actually a medical doctor!
can anyone explain how our Muhaddithun came to know so much about hadith narrators although they lived far before them. i mean about their teachers, their uprightness ,memory and so on . what was their source ?
