Hadith

Emergence of hadiths as a literary form

Upon Muhammad’s death the issue of whether Muslims should write down and compile reports attributed to him became a matter of dispute. Recording Muhammad’s traditions presented a variety of challenges. First, verification of the accuracy of these reports was difficult. Unlike the text of the Qurʾān, which Muhammad himself taught to his community and which many had memorized and written down before his death, numerous reports were unknown to more than one or two of the Companions, and forgery and false attribution were rampant. There was the additional possibility that writing down the hadiths might inadvertently elevate their sanctity vis-à-vis the Qurʾān. Ultimately, the resolution of this debate favoured writing, and the Companions as well as successive generations devoted themselves to collecting and compiling traditions attributed to the Prophet and to learning how to differentiate inauthentic or compromised traditions from the authoritative ones. The collection and canonization of a standardized written text of the Qurʾān, a process which spanned several decades after Muhammad’s death, was mostly completed during the rule of the third caliph, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (died 656). The impetus to record, compile, and authenticate traditions gained traction and strength after this landmark process.

The earliest decades of hadith transmission can best be described as a time of ad hoc, informal, and spontaneous conveying of information about Muhammad by many of the Companions, from his closest confidantes and family members to those who had met him only in passing. The transmission occurred as a response to specific questions that arose within the Muslim community as well as in informal study circles devoted to religious knowledge. Awareness of the power and authority of these words to shape actions and beliefs across the nascent Islamic empire also led to fabrication of reports in the interests of buttressing personal views with the authority of the Prophet. Some Muslim scholars, perceiving the dangers of the spread of inauthentic traditions, devised a host of methods to guard against forgeries.

By the second century of Islamic history, hadiths had come to have a characteristic literary form, comprising the isnād (a chain of narrators listed in chronological order from Muhammad and his Companions onward) followed by the matn (body text) conveying the substance of the information by or about Muhammad. The isnad (a term derived from the Arabic verb meaning “to support or hold up”) listed names of the transmitters (ruwāt; singular: rāwī) or narrators of any given tradition in order to facilitate verification of that tradition. Additionally, technical terms used in the isnad could convey whether the transmission had been oral or written and whether it entailed direct contact between the conveyor and recipient of the hadith. The following is one example of a hadith (with the isnad and matn) from the compendium Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī (died 870), one of the most authoritative Hadith collections of the Sunni Muslims.

Muḥammad ibn Bashshār narrated to us; he said that Yaḥyā narrated to me and said that Shuʿba said [to him] that Abū al-Sayyāḥ told him on the authority of Anas on the authority of the Prophet (peace be upon him) that he said [concerning religion], “Facilitate matters (for people) and do not make it difficult and give them good tidings and do not make them turn away (from religion).” Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, “Book of Knowledge”, section 11.

The majority Muslim view locating the origins of many hadiths in the time of Muhammad himself, as described above, does not preclude scholarly debates about the utility of the Hadith corpus as a source for verifiable knowledge and actionable precedent. For example, some early proponents of the Muʿtazilī theological school opposed using a type of hadith known as khabar al-waḥīd. They considered these reports, which were narrated by single transmitters in the generations after Muhammad, less reliable than reports which were known to two or more transmitters in every generation. Those who favoured the use of khabar al-waḥīd as legal proofs focused more on whether the transmitters in the isnad were reliable rather than on the number of transmitters. Such discussions are well attested in the early period of Islam and continue into the modern era.

Irrespective of disagreements about the veracity or legal value of an individual hadith, the system of verification through isnads spread beyond hadith transmission to other fields of learning and literary production. Compilations in the areas of history and literature and even in the sciences such as astronomy or medicine featured isnads that confirmed the pedigree and reliability of their contents.

Sectarian differences

Within the first few decades of Islamic history, disputes over who would succeed Muhammad as leader of the Muslim community led to long-term sectarian divisions. Sunni and Shiʿi Islam are the two main sects which trace their roots to this political division. In simplified terms, Shiʿis, who comprise a small but significant minority, believe that succession to the Prophet should remain within his family and that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (died 661), his cousin and son-in-law was his rightful heir. Further, they believe that leadership should remain among Muhammad’s descendants through the marriage of ʿAlī and his daughter Fāṭimah (died 632). Sunnis, who today make up more than 85 percent of Muslims worldwide, did not assert the primacy of kinship to Muhammad as a criteria for succession nor did they believe that leadership should be limited to the specific lineage of ʿAlī and Fāṭimah. These early political disagreements ultimately give rise to deeper and broader legal, theological, and cultural cleavages across Muslim history.

This article deals primarily with Sunni Hadith, and it is important to bear in mind that the domain of Shiʿi Hadith transmission differs from it in some significant ways. Several major distinctions are as follows. For the Shiʿis, the term “hadith” may refer to a report on the authority of the Prophet or those selected male members of the Prophet’s family who were believed to have inherited his spiritual and political leadership (called imams). Furthermore, the narrators who are considered authoritative are most often those who are respected within the Shiʿi tradition. While this does not preclude the presence of Sunnis in the chain of transmission, it does mean that Shiʿis relied on different networks of transmission. With respect to individual reports, the Shiʿi corpus of Hadith does have some overlap with that of the Sunnis, particularly with respect to legal traditions. However, the canonical Shiʿi corpus contains numerous reports about the virtues of the family of Muhammad. His daughter Fāṭimah, her husband ʿAlī, and their descendants are the focus of veneration in many reports that either do not exist in the Sunni corpus or are not given the same importance. In a similar vein, some of Muhammad’s Companions are granted a higher stature in the Sunni reports. Two such examples are Abū Bakr (died 634) and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (died 644), the first two caliphs to succeed Muhammad, who were not deemed as rightful leaders by the Shiʿi.

Such discrepancies in the hadith corpus reflect and sustain the divergent views of Sunnis and Shiʿis regarding political and spiritual leadership after the death of Muhammad, which is at the root of the sectarian split. Finally, it is important to note that Hadith did not exercise the same pervasive influence in early and classical Shiʿi intellectual culture. Nevertheless, Shiʿis did develop their own canonical collections, ancillary biographical tradition, and methodological approaches to the Hadith, which roughly parallel Sunni efforts in this arena and will be described further below.

Development and evolution of Hadith sciences

Ascertaining forgeries and classifying hadiths became essential to scholars because Hadith was considered a critical source of Islamic law and creed from the earliest decades of Islamic history. These efforts gained momentum over the course of the 7th and 8th centuries and ultimately led to the articulation of a subfield known as ʿilm al-rijāl (“the science of hadith transmitters”), ʿilm al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl (“the science of critiquing [transmitters] and ascertaining the reliability [of their reports]”), and ʿilm al-ḥadīth (“the science of Hadith”).

Biographical dictionaries (ṭabaqāt) documented numerous men and women and their networks of hadith learning. Each formulaic biographical entry supplies information such as the name of the transmitter, genealogy, provenance, and birth and death dates. Other information to situate him or her in the world of hadith learning could include the names of people from whom the narrators acquired knowledge as well as those whom they taught. Journeys taken in order to learn hadiths are also mentioned given that direct (face-to-face) oral transmission was deemed the best way to learn reports. Journeys in the quest of religious knowledge (riḥlah fī ṭalab al-ʿilm) became a hallmark of this field by the mid-9th century. Scholars distinguished themselves by their devotion to collecting hadiths from sources dispersed throughout the Islamic world irrespective of the hardships such journeys entailed. Finally, biographical entries often included qualitative assessments—that is, the judgment of peers about whether the subject of the biography was reliable, pious, and of sound memory and reputation. In addition to biographical dictionaries, chronicles and geographical dictionaries were used to situate transmitters in a broader context and enable meaningful assessment of their qualifications and abilities to narrate individual reports.

While ʿilm al-rijāl and ʿilm al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl focused specifically on the transmitters, ʿilm al-ḥadīth articulated the etiquette and standards of the discipline as well as guidelines and definitions of terms concerning the hadiths themselves. Al-Rāmahurmuzī’s (died 961) Al-Muḥaddith al-fāṣil bayna al-rāwī wa al-wāʿī is the earliest known work in this genre and is a systematic presentation of the field of hadith learning, its virtues, and the qualifications necessary for hadith transmitters. Other scholars followed with their own expositions of the fields, including al-Ḥākim al-Nīsābūrī (died 1012), al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (died 1071), and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ al-Shahrazūrī (died 1245). Each work is a reflection of the individual scholar’s approach to the field and its standards and also serves as a reflection of the state of this field in his day. Taken together, the manuals of hadith transmission help reconstruct the evolution of the Hadith sciences across centuries.

Qualifications of transmitters and classifications of hadiths

The qualifications of a transmitter, as well as classification of individual reports themselves, were important concerns for the field. The following prerequisites were essential for trustworthy transmitters: faith, reputation for truthfulness, maturity, being of sound mind, and possessing a good memory. Furthermore, narrators were expected to understand the content of the traditions they transmitted, relay the report(s) verbatim rather than in their own words, and possess sufficient knowledge of Arabic to understand how oral expression or phrasing of a report may impact meaning.

Within the first century and a half of Islamic history, scholars also began to distinguish between narrators whose function was the memorization and accurate transmission of reports (orally or in writing) and narrators who had mastered the field of hadith learning. The latter had deep knowledge of individual transmitters across Islamic history, including their qualifications and relative standing, and would be able to discern the different types of hadiths and distinguish the authoritative from the unreliable ones.

In this vein, scholars developed a complex system for the evaluation and grading of individual reports. At the most basic level, hadith reports were divided into three categories: (1) ṣaḥīḥ (sound, accurate), (2) ḥasan (fair), and (3) ḍaʿīf (weak). Additionally, a profusion of terms were used to describe and grade both the chain of transmitters (isnad) and the text (matn). For example, the most authoritative hadiths, such as the type found in the Ṣaḥīḥs of al-Bukhārī and Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj, included at least one trustworthy narrator in every generation from the time of the Prophet onward. These hadiths’ isnads were categorized as muttaṣil (continuous, uninterrupted) or marfūʿ (going back to Muhammad himself). Isnads for which one or more narrators could not be verified were termed maqṭūʿ (broken, interrupted) or mursal (incomplete). Ones that were deemed to be forgeries were labeled as mawḍūʿ. These terms and others are treated in detail in the manuals of hadith transmission. The precise meanings of the terms evolved over time, and the manuals reflect these changes and record scholarly disagreement over technicalities.

Hadith and other areas of Muslim life

Use of Hadith was by no means confined to law. The sanctity of these reports and the ways in which they served to preserve and enliven the memory of Muhammad across time and place guaranteed them a currency in multiple areas of scholarly, literary, and cultural production. The example of Sufism, defined as a focus on the mystical inclinations within Islam, is illustrative. Sufi scholars and practitioners tended to draw on and amplify hadiths that focus on the development of the spiritual self, asceticism, and the human striving for connection with the divine. Hadiths were also deployed to legitimize Sufism’s more formal structures of brotherhoods (tariqas), hierarchies of initiation, and rituals that were articulated from the 9th century onward.

Because hadith learning was so esteemed, excellence in this pursuit could result in a higher social rank and reputation. Achievement as a scholar of Hadith became an important status marker for scholarly families. In communities where religious learning was often transmitted intergenerationally, families could transmit social capital by immersing themselves in the study of Hadith. Scholarly lineages were sometimes created and reproduced around the enterprise of hadith learning.

In the sphere of popular culture as well, hadith reports served to construct cultures of piety and encourage the masses to imbibe values and habits promoted by scholars, rulers, or preachers. Historical records of the 12th and 13th centuries, for example, confirm the practice of public readings of short topical hadith collections generally intended to exhort listeners to greater piety, virtue, and asceticism. Some readings had a ceremonial value sanctifying occasions such as the ascent of a dynast or the birth of a child.

Reception of Hadith by Western academics

In the modern period Western academics, who may themselves be Muslim or non-Muslim, have also examined Hadith literature and have been interested in its potential as a historical source for early Islam. Their historical and historiographical methods have sometimes led them to alternative accounts of the formation of Hadith. Western academic study of Hadith can be traced to the late 19th century with William Muir’s (died 1905) study entitled The Life of Mahomet (1857–61). Following him, Ignáz Goldziher (died 1921) produced a more systematic and thorough examination of available sources. Though this field is characterized by a broad range of methodologies, approaches, and conclusions, it is nonetheless viewed by some Muslims to be fundamentally compromised by its roots in Western Orientalist scholarship and the backdrop of European imperialism. For example, stereotypes and tropes of Muhammad as an imposter and as a lustful conquest-driven false prophet, which are attested in medieval and early modern European literature, helped rationalize Western Christian colonial ventures and have coloured frameworks applied to historical sources such as biographical literature and the corpus of Hadith.

With regard to the historicity of Hadith, the spectrum of positions in Western studies of Islam ranges widely. A radically skeptical minority approach denies that Hadith originated with Muhammad and posits instead that the entire foundation narrative of Islam is apocryphal. According to this view, all hadiths are fabrications dating primarily from the 9th and 10th centuries. From this perspective, Hadith functions to promote the foundation mythologies of Islam as well as theological, legal, and sectarian tendencies that proliferated in the formative period. In contrast to this skepticism, many Western scholars generally accept the broad outlines of the Muslim account but maintain that each report (or cluster of related reports) must be evaluated independently to ascertain historicity. They have proposed their own methods for dating and situating hadiths. These include statistical analyses of data derived from isnads and their accompanying texts as well as historical analyses of the content of selected hadith reports. They have also scrutinized linguistic features, regional circulation of traditions, and possible authorship (in the generations after Muhammad). Ultimately, cross-fertilization between academic and confessional scholarship has generated a more-detailed historical understanding not just of the origins of Hadith but also of its social, political, theological, and legal significance.