Inapproprite Attitudes Towards Hadeeths

1. We have some good Muslims who will accept anything that’s quoted as Hadith or Qur’an. Recently I saw a message which said “Holy Qur’an: Pray before you are being prayed upon”. We all have read this “Pray before you are being prayed upon” on posters, email etc. But, where in the Qur’an this is written? So, anybody can utter anything, and claim that is in Qur’an? Can this get any worse?

2. There is another group of good Muslims who believe that anyone is capable of interpreting hadiths. Their anguish is based on the perception that some Aalims are not conveying the truth, that those Aalims aren’t giving importance to hadiths.

#1: Quoting / Believing “Hadeeths” without sources (No reference to the Book, or the Imam who recorded it)

Q: What did Imams Maalik, Ahmad, Bukhari, Muslim [May Allaah be pleased with them all] etc do?

A: They spent their lifetime collecting Hadeeths, analyzing their Isnaad [chain of narrators] and matn [text], categorizing them, recording them and teaching them.

Q: Why did they do that?

A: So that the Muslims can distinguish the true/good hadeeths from fake / fabricated or weak hadeeths. If we think it is not important to distinguish between weak and strong hadeeths, or if there is no problem in accepting fabricated / fake hadeeths, then we are implying that these Imams didn’t know better – “We know Islam better. In Islam, there is no difference among strong, weak and fake hadeeths”.

If we don’t want to give the source / book name, or if we accept everything that is quoted as “hadeeth”, then what we are saying is “We DON’T CARE ABOUT THEIR WORKS. Yes, they spent time to identify strong and weak hadeeths, but we love to hear fake hadeeths”.

Many Aalims / Moulavis claim to love and respect the Imams, but don’t give the sources for hadeeths or other narrations.  Please convey to them “If you really respect them, then quote them. They worked so hard, but you don’t even want to tell us which of them recorded that? We trust you, respected Alim. But then, there are other people who tell Weak (Daeef) hadeeths. We can’t ask them to tell their sources / books, if you don’t tell the names of Imam or the hadeeth book”

The first consequence of love is commitment. If i say “I love my mother”, then i should be talking to her, be with her, help her etc. That’s my commitment.

Allah Almighty says, “Say: ‘If you love Allah, then follow me and Allah will love you and forgive you for your wrong actions, Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (3:31). It is a lie if someone says “I love Allah”, but doesn’t follow His commands given via Prophet.

Similarly, saying “I love Sahabas, Tabieens, Imams etc” is hollow if we don’t respect their works.

#2: Random reading of Hadeeths

A  few points to the good-intentioned brothers who read hadeeths from books & internet, and start to discuss fiqh rulings based on them.

1) You don’t know Arabic. How do you know the translation of the Hadeeth is complete?

2) Do you know if the hadeeth is authentic or not?

3) Do you know if the hadeeth was abrogated (Mansookh) or abrogating (Naasikh)?

4) Is that hadeeth applicable to all times, or specific to the people, time or place?

5) What if there is another stronger hadeeth that seem to contradict this hadeeth?

6) What if Quranic verses and hadeeths seem to contradict one another? How would you reconcile them? Or, which one would you pick?

and, many more.Hope the point is clear. Let’s not get into areas where we have no knowledge.

Does that mean we should leave our religion to Aalims, and blindly follow them? Absolutely NOT. Read the Qur’aan, understand that, read hadeeths, learn how to do Da’wah, read authentic Islamic books / websites, ask questions, read fatwas etc. Do all these things to learn our Lord, our Prophet, to get guidance, to know our history, to improve our character, to know how our predecessors lived etc. Just don’t assume that we can be a Mujtahid (capable to infer rulings from foundational sources), or a Mufassir (Explainer of Qur’aan), or a Muhaddith (Hadeeth expert) without long years of study and research.

A good scholar won’t shout at you when you ask questions. Of course, if the topic requires an understanding of some other topics / things, he can’t teach all of them in a day. You have to enrol in a degree program to learn.

The Imaams have written some hadeeth books for common Muslims. For example, Riyadhus Saliheen, 40 Hadeeths of Nawawi ( You can learn this at http://www.islamiconlineuniversity.com/opencampus/) etc. There are abridged Tafseers that suit ordinary Muslims, but then there are some that are suited only for those who are highly proficient in certain areas, like Arabic Linguistics. Qurtubi’s tafseer goes in-depth into Fiqh matters. Do you think we can understand that?

Saheeh Bukhari wasn’t written for casual reading. Saheehs were compiled after a lot of problems and divisions occurred among the ummah. Here is a quote from the “Evolution of Fiqh” by Dr. Bilal Philips.

“Focusing on Hadeeth to resolve the problems of Fiqh, great scholars of Hadeeth like Imaam al-Bukhaaree (810-870 CE) and Imaam Muslim (817-875 CE) went to great pains to collect from all possible sources authentic Hadeeths of the Prophet (s.w.) and Athars of the Sahaabah. These, they arranged in chapters according to the format established by the Fiqh scholars. The initiator of this trend was the last of the major Imaams, Ahmad ibn Hambal, who compiled the most extensive work of Hadeeth called al-Musnad. Both Imaam al-Bukhaaree and Imaam Muslim were among his students”
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