 become established and sanctified in their minds. And when they eventually did get to a study of the foundational books of the Sunnah, the matter of verification was already lost for them, such that they treated all these reports with sanctity and reverence. Among the masses, they perpetuated reverence for all that was spread in the name of ḥadīth and hastened to accept all such reports, even those that were slightly weak, contradictory, extremely weak, and even false and fabricated. These reports began to fill their pages and books and adorn their speeches and words. Even great scholars fell into this, and very few were those who managed to be protected from this.
Part of their reverence for these treasure troves of narrations was not fully accepting the notion of weakness or conflict in these reports. They resorted to accepting the veracity of every weak, conflicting and defective report—even fabricated ones—clinging to the multiplicity of their routes of transmission as justification. Everything ultimately became muddled, to the extent that weak reports became deemed as sound (ḥasan and ṣaḥīḥ). Anomalous, conflicting (shādh) reports became sound (maḥfūẓ), and rejected (munkar) reports became accepted (maʿrūf). They even became accommodating towards fabricated and baseless reports instead of regarding them as detested or loathsome.
They asked: So what is the correct method for studying ḥadīth?
Qurʾān as Sacred Text, Ḥadīth as Historical Reports
The correct method is that which was practiced by the Successors and those that came after them until the fourth century, which was to receive ḥadīth with its two essential and inseparable parts:
- The study of its isnād (chain of narrators): To not approach ḥadīth as philosophy but as historical reports, which are always referenced to their sources whose veracity is then investigated thoroughly. Historical reports are never accepted until you fully examine them in order to separate the sound from the baseless ones.
- The study of its matn (text): to examine the content of the ḥadīth in order to deeply understand its meaning and to practice it, all of this by linking it with the Book of God in complete clarity and fully reconciling between these two sources.
When the student combines these two matters in this way, he comes to the right way of differentiating between the Qurʾān and ḥadīth: that additional precaution is required with ḥadīth. This precaution is essential to realizing sound knowledge, and this was the approach of the predecessors of our ummah. Know that stripping ḥadīth reports of their isnād is an error of grave proportions which continues to afflict the ummah. I have previously authored two articles which can help in this regard: “Between Ḥadīth and Philosophy” and “the Neglect of the Scholars from the Way of the People of Ḥadīth.”
They asked: Can you let us know which book they should begin with, and how to proceed after that?
They must begin with the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Imām Mālik through the transmission of Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā al-Laythī, along with a deep study of its isnāds in order to realize the methodology and caution of Mālik in accepting ḥadīth, and examining its contents for comprehension and application. When they complete the Muwaṭṭaʾ following all of these aspects, they should proceed to the Jāmiʿ of Abū ʿĪsā also studying its isnāds and meanings. They then move on to study Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim and Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī, examining their chains and meanings. And then this same methodology is applied to the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasā’ī and Ibn Mājah.
It is also essential for them to study some other seminal works such as the Muqaddimah of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, the ʿIlal of Tirmidhī, some portions from the Risālah of Imām Shāfiʿī, Maʿrifah ʿUlūm al-Ḥadīth of Ḥākim, the works of al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, the ʿIlal of Ibn Abū Ḥātim, the ʿIlal of Dāruquṭnī, and the Tārīkh of Bukhārī.
They said: But that would consume so much time!
This is what knowledge is: nothing other than exertion and struggle. Only those are blessed by it who have no other concern and no other preoccupation.
They asked: Wh