Hadith by Jonathan A.C. Brown

Author:Jonathan A.C. Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2011-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

WEAK HADITHS AND PRACTICE: DIFFERENT PROOFS FOR THE AUTHENTICITY OF LEGAL HADITHS

During the formative first three centuries of the Sunni legal tradition, there was a diversity of approaches to weighing the evidence provided by isnads against the accepted practice of legal scholars. Despite their obsession with the isnad as the only means of authenticating hadiths, early ahl al-hadith jurists affirmed that the widespread acceptance of a legal ruling could offset a lackluster isnad. In such a case, the legal stance mentioned in the weak hadith was strengthened by the established tradition of the Muslim community, not by the hadith’s isnad. In the chapter in his Jami‘ on facing the preacher when he is giving his sermon during Friday prayer, al-Tirmidhi provides the following hadith:

It was reported to us by ‘Abbad b. Ya‘qub al-Kufi: it was reported to us by Muhammad b. al-Fadl b. ‘Atiyya, from Mansur, from Ibrahim, from ‘Alqama, from ‘Abdallah b. Mas‘ud, who said, ‘When the Prophet used to stand up on the pulpit we would turn our faces to him.’

Al-Tirmidhi, however, declares this hadith weak because Muhammad b. al-Fadl b. ‘Atiyya ‘is weak, useless in hadith.’ In fact, he states, there are no authentic hadiths about facing the Prophet. Al-Tirmidhi adds, however, that ‘the scholars of the Companions and those who came after them have acted according to this hadith – they preferred to face the preacher when he begins speaking. This is the stance of Sufyan al-Thawri, al-Shafi‘i, Ahmad b. Hanbal and Ishaq b. Rahawayh.’17

A more famous example occurs in the case of inheritance. The Quran and hadiths set detailed regulations for how much a person must leave to each of his or her inheritors – a person can distribute no more than one third of the estate to people of his or her own choosing. In a famous hadith, however, the Prophet declares, ‘No bequest to an inheritor (la wasiyya li-warith)’; in other words, one cannot leave part of this third to someone who already inherits automatically. Every one of the many narrations of this hadith suffers from some flaw in the isnad according to Muslim hadith critics. But as al-Shafi‘i and the Maliki hadith scholar of Lisbon, Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1070), declared, ‘With reports like this that became well established among all the scholars, it is not necessary to provide an isnad. For its widespread transmission and well-known status among them is stronger than any isnad.’18

Similarly, a hadith could be set aside as unrepresentative of the Prophet’s Sunna based on the collective practice of the Muslim community. Al-Tirmidhi narrates the hadith: ‘Amr b. Abi ‘Amr ‘Ikrima Ibn ‘Abbas that the Prophet said, ‘When you find someone who has had sex with an animal, kill him and kill the animal.’ Al-Tirmidhi says that he does not know of this hadith from anyone other than ‘Amr b. Abi ‘Amr, but that Sufyan al-Thawri quoted Ibn ‘Abbas that no one should be killed for bestiality. Al-Tirmidhi concludes that this second report is more authentic than the first, in great part because ‘this is what jurists like Ibn Hanbal and Ishaq b.

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