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| Hadith and Sunnah questions |
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| Dawn |
| 03/21/02 at 15:27:27 |
| I am a bit confused about Sunnah and Hadith. Is all of the Sunnah to be found in the Hadith and Qur'an? If not, where else does it come from? Could someone give me precise definitions of Sunnah and Hadith? I have gathered their general meanings from reading posts here and reading other websites, but I don't recall seeing defintions. Also, what is it that makes a Hadith strong vs. weak? How is a Hadith found to be strong or weak or false? Is there a list somewhere of all the strong Hadith? weak Hadith? false ones? The ones that are found online, like Bukhari or Muslim (there were a couple others, but I can't remember what they were called), are they all strong or are there some weak ones included? As you can see, I don't quite have a handle on this ::). Thanks for your help! Peace, Dawn |
| Re: Hadith and Sunnah questions |
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| se7en |
| 03/21/02 at 15:57:43 |
| salaam, Dawn this is a gooooood question :) 'Sunnah' is an Arabic word that just means way, mode, or method of doing something. In an Islamic context, it refers to the way of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. We strive to emulate him, follow his way, because we believe that he was divinely chosen, and divinely guided. We also believe that though the Qur'an tells us *what* to do - in terms of commands and prohibitions - it's in the prophet, peace be upon him, that we can actually see *how* we should go about implementing these things in our lives. (the word sunnah has some other meanings - but I think this one is what is relevant to your question) 'Hadeeth' is an Arabic word that means news, saying, or speech. In an Islamic context, it refers to a recording about the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him - a recording of something he said, did, tacitly approved of, a description of his appearance, mannerisms, etc. Each one of these recordings has with it a chain of narrators -- from the original person who heard/saw/noted this thing about the prophet Muhammad, to the person they narrated it to, to the next, to the next, etc. until it was documented. We believe that the Qur'an is completely unchanged - protected and preserved - and this is something historians, both Muslim and non, have beared witness to. Each hadeeth does not have this guarantee of preserved authenticity. Scholars of the past have acknowledged this, and established a science of hadeeth - a science of determining the validity and authenticity of each hadeeth - based on the strength of the chain of narrators, and also the content of the hadeeth itself. I attended a week long intensive on this science, and I can tell you that that is just what it is - a science. Each text, each of its narrators, goes through a great deal of scrutiny before the validity and authenticity of a text are established. Scholars also look at chronology, credibility of the narrator, memory strength, etc.. I think often times people mistake the hadeeth for.. like legends, or folklore, passed down from generation to generation, added upon and changed, with nothing to keep it in check.. and this is *completely* untrue. There is a science of validation here. There are levels of authenticity. Anyway.. those were just my definitions!! :P I'll try to answer some of your questions now. [quote]Could someone give me precise definitions of Sunnah and Hadith? [/quote] The hadeeth allow us to see what the sunnah of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was. Each hadeeth is sort of like a puzzle piece.. and when fitted together they form the picture of the sunnah. Does that make sense? Also, they are a source of law. Meaning that, if a scholars was trying to determine the permissibility of something in Islam, he/she would first refer to the Qur'an (to see if there are any applicable verses) and then the hadeeth to see if the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said or did something that would be relevant to the issue. [quote]Also, what is it that makes a Hadith strong vs. weak?[/quote] There are a lot of factors the scholars look at. I have some notes on this I can pull out, if you're interested in the detail, but some of the things I can think of off hand are: - the content of the hadeeth itself - is it consistent with the teachings of the prophet? is it linguistically, grammatically correct? - are the narrators of the hadeeth credible? what is their history, previous experience, etc? - do the narrators chronologically match up (ie, if one narrator died before another was born, something is wrong :P) etc [quote]Is there a list somewhere of all the strong Hadith? weak Hadith? false ones? The ones that are found online, like Bukhari or Muslim (there were a couple others, but I can't remember what they were called), are they all strong or are there some weak ones included? [/quote] There are six "sound" books that are most often used, the two most authentic being Bukhari and Muslim, from what I know, Allahu a'lam (God knows best). wooooooooooh... <deep breath> y'all feel free to correct and add on to this, please. Dawn did this help you at all? Make any sense? :) Any other q's? peace / as salaamu alaykum :) |
| 03/21/02 at 16:49:16 |
| se7en |
| Re: Hadith and Sunnah questions |
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| bhaloo |
| 03/21/02 at 16:46:37 |
| [slm] Dawn there are some good articles here explaining a bit about the science of hadith, and the difference between the sunnah and hadith. http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/ The major hadith collections I have listed here along with an explanation for each collection, including the common ones. http://members.cox.net/arshad/hadithcol.html |
| Re: Hadith and Sunnah questions |
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| Dawn |
| 03/25/02 at 09:46:46 |
| Thanks for the help so far. Your definitions were really good se7en, and those web links were also really good -- a bit much to remember in only one read, but I have them bookmarked. Let me see if I have understood this issue of categorizing hadith (more or less) correctly. The strength or reliability of an individual saying or report is sort of like assigning a probability to it of it's being authentic. This probability is a function of a number of factors, such as the number of different people who report it, it's chain of reporters and their reliability, its contents, etc. So, a Sahih hadith is one which has a very high probability of being true, for one or more of the above described reasons. And the lesser categories (of which I found out there are many!) are associated with lower probabilities of being correct. Is this the general idea? |
| 03/25/02 at 09:48:13 |
| Dawn |
| Re: Hadith and Sunnah questions |
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| se7en |
| 03/25/02 at 22:35:44 |
| salaam, Mmhmm, that's basically right Dawn, as far as I know :-* Here, have a [] on me for your efforts :) There is a type of hadeeth that has such a high level of probability it's considered *definitely* authentic (because of the many conditions it fulfills, and because it has many sound chains of narration, instead of just one).. these texts are called [i]mutawattir[/i]. Below the category of mutawattir, are the categories of sahih ['authentic'], hassan ['good'], da'eef ['weak'].. and each categorization also has different levels and types. Hope this is of help :) wasalaam :-) |
| 03/25/02 at 22:38:46 |
| se7en |
| Re: Hadith and Sunnah questions |
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| Dawn |
| 03/26/02 at 04:15:19 |
| Oh, I had understood it that there were some hadith that were sahih because they were Mutawattir. However, making Mutawattir as a separate category makes more sense, as this type of hadith had seemed to me to be sort of super-sahih, if you know what I mean. Which brings up one more question. Is there an online collection anywhere where all the Mutawattir are listed together? And thanks for the Bebsi, though it will have to be caffeine free for me! |
| Re: Hadith and Sunnah questions |
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| BrKhalid |
| 03/26/02 at 05:38:15 |
| Asalaamu Alaikum ;-) [quote]Is there an online collection anywhere where all the Mutawattir are listed together? [/quote] If there is I'd want to know to ;-) Do we have a bat signal for Br assing? This thread would be right up his street. |
| Re: Hadith and Sunnah questions |
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| ahmer |
| 03/26/02 at 09:10:29 |
[quote] There are six "sound" books that are most often used, the two most authentic being Bukhari and Muslim, from what I know, Allahu a'lam (God knows best). [/quote] from what i have heard from scholars is that besides these six books, there are a lot of ahadith in many other books. The criteria is that if the chain and meaning of the hadith is sound, then they are accepted as hadith too. sr. se7en ..it was just a lil comment of mine not a correction!..:) wallahu Alam.. [wlm] ahmer |
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