اختصار علوم الحديث 1

بِسْم الله الرحمن الرحيم

اختصار علوم الحديث لابن كثير 

- The first person to have written about the science of مصطلح الحديث is الإمام ابي محمد الحسن ابن عبد الرحمن خلاد الرام الخرمزي

He wrote a book called Al-Muhadith Al-Faasil. He compiled issues here and there and didn’t go in details.

- After him came Abu Abdullah Al-Hakim An-Naysaboori who authored his book Ma’rifatul Uloom Al-Hadeeth which was a bit thicker than Al-Muhadith Al-Faasil.

- Then came Qadi Iyad Al-Yahsoobi who authored his book Al-Ilmaa’ illa Ma’rifatil Riwayaat wa Taqyeed As-Samaa. It’s a very beneficial book. 

- After him came Al-Khateeb Al-Baghdadi who compiled more than those before him on this science. Everyone who came after him benefited from his works.

- Then came عثمان بن عبد الرحمن الشهرزوري تقي الدين ابن الصلاح. He wrote a book called علوم الحديث which is also known as مقدمة ابن صلاح

People came after him and either made poetry out of this book, summarized it, or explained it. From the Scholars that summarized it was Imam An-Nawawi and from those that made poetry out of it was Zayd Ad-Deen Al-Iraqi (who was the teacher of Ibn Hajar) and from those who explained the book was a student of Ibn Hajar.

This is the book the later Scholars focused and relied on. You cannot count how many people made poetry out of it, summarized the books, corrected the mistakes, supported the book, etc. 

اختصار علوم الحديث is Ibn Kathir’s summary of علوم الحديث.

Note: A mistake many people fall into is that they call it بعث الحديث. They do this because Ahmed Shakir explained the book and when he did his explanation became famous, so they attributed the explanation to Ibn Kathir whilst it should be attributed to Ibn Kathir. Ibn Kathir did the summary and Ahmed Shakir did the explanation of that summary.

The Author, Ibn Kathir, mentions that there will be 65 types of Hadeeth which he will cover in this book:

Ibn Kathir mentions the methodology he is going to take. He is going to follow Ibn Salah in mentioning these types and he s going to correct the sequence of some place. For example, he made the مرسل الخفي separate from the تدليس and if he were to try to merge them together it would have been better. 

Why is Ibn Salah’s book not organized properly? They said when he was in his Madrasatul Ashrafiyyah he would dictate his book therefore there wasn’t much order.

Ibn Salah said: The science of Hadeeth is divided into three types:

1) Saheeh

2) Hasan

3) Da’eef

(However if we break it down into more details, it becomes 65)

Iraqi says in his Alfiyyah: 

و أهل هذا الشأن قسموا السنن *** إلى صحيح و ضعيف و حسن 

The people of this matter (I.e. Hadeeth) divided the Sunan ***  into Saheeh, and Da’eef, and Hasan

Ibn Kathir says: If you mean a piece of information in and of itself, then it can only be divided into two: It’s either authentic or it’s not. Hasan has got one leg in authentic and one leg in falsehood, and a piece of information is either truthful or it’s not. The Mu’tazilah, however, believe there are three types.

The word صحيح is in صيغة المبالغة and is taken from the root word صحة which is the opposite of سقيم (I.e. sickness).

5 conditions have to be found for a Hadeeth to be Saheeh:

1) الحديث المسند الذي يتصل إسناده - A Hadeeth attributed to the Prophet ﷺ and the chain is connected 

The Scholars corrected Ibn Salah here because he repeated the same thing in different words. 

What does it mean when a chain is connected? Every narrator heard from the narrator above them when they took the chain and they passed it onto the next person.

2) بنقل العدل 

This means the narrator has to have two things:

a) Piety (تقوى) 

b) Integrity (مروءة)

3) الضابط 

His precision and memory should be good. There are two types of ضبط:

a) ضبط الحفظي - Memorization

b) ضبط الكتابي - Preserved by writing 

4) و لا يكون شاذ 

Imam Ash-Shafi’i defined this as a Hadeeth narrated by reliable person but opposes other him who are more than him in number or equal. 

Some Scholars said this should not be a condition because the narrator is reliable and the opposition is not his hand. But that is the view of the أصوليين and not the محدثين. 

5) و لا معللا 

The Hadeeth cannot have a defect in it. The defect is two types:

a) علة قادحة - A defect that can harm the narration 

b) علة غير قادحة - A defect that cannot harm the narration 

E.g. A narrator says “I heard from Sufyan.” We know there are two Sufyans; Sufyan Ath-Thawri and Sufyan Ibn Uyainah. Even if we don’t know which one he is referring to, they are both reliable.

Iraqi mentioned these conditions in his Alfiyyah:

فالأول المتصل الإسناد *** بنقل عدل ضابط الفؤاد

عن مثله من غير ما شذوذ *** و علة قادحة فذوذ

The Author now goes into the benefits of knowing the above: 

Any Hadeeth that meets those 5 conditions; three of them present (إيجابي) and two missing (سلبي), has the ruling of Saheeh and will be used as an evidence without difference between the People of Hadeeth.

Imam Malik did not agree with a type: The Mursal Hadeeth. It’s a strong Hadeeth with him. 

Now he mentions who the Saheeh Hadeeth is attributed to. The Hadeeth reaches:

a) The Prophet ﷺ 

This is called a مرفوع Hadeeth

b) or a Companion 

This is called a موقوف Hadeeth

c) or below a Companion (A Tabi’i)

This is called a مقطوع Hadeeth

But it has to meet the 5 conditions mentioned above. However, it may be غريب or مشهور.

غريب  is only one chain up to the Prophet ﷺ 

مشهور is three plus chains of narrations.

The number does not matter for it to be Saheeh, it just has to meet the 5 conditions.

Abul-Hakim An-Naysaboori, Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Husayn Al-Basri, and Al-Karmani took a strange incorrect opinion that if the Hadeeth has to be Saheeh it has to meet the 5 conditions and two more people should have narrated the Hadeeth. 

Ironically, the first and last Hadeeth in Saheeh Al-Bukhari are both Ghareeb Hadeeth.

The author then mentions the أصح الأسانيد (I.e. The Golden Chains).

Iraqi did not like the idea of going into the ‘best chains’. He said in his Alfiyyah:

 إمساكنا عن حكمنا على سند *** بأنه أصح مطلقا و قد

خاض به قوم فقيل مالك *** عن نافع بما رواه الناسك 

What benefit do we get from knowing which chain is the best? When there are oppositions between  Hadeeth, both stating something different, one ways of reconciling the Hadeeth is to weaken the other narrations by the أصح الأسانيد. Also, it helps you with memorizing the Isnad of Hadeeths.

Now the Author mentions the first person to write a Hadeeth book. Many people mistaken Bukhari to be the first, there were many before him including Imam Malik and his Mutawwa. The first one was Abu Shihab Az-Zuhri. What Bukhari did first was to condition authenticity. He was the first to write a Saheeh Hadeeth book. The second was Muslim. 

The Scholars gave precedence to Bukhari except the people of Maghreb and An-Naysaboori gave precedence to Muslim. 

Bukhari is better than Muslim in authenticity in three ways:

1) اتصال السند 

He conditioned a condition which Muslim did not condition in that two narrators narrating should have met each other at least once if one of them is مدلس (a person who drops people out of the chain to make it shorter. A said to B and B said to C, but C says A said it without mentioning B). Muslim said that at long as they lived in the same era it’s fine.

2) The narrators that are criticized are less in Bukhari than Muslim

3) Bukhari is the teacher and Muslim is the student.

Muslim, however, is better than Bukhari in the way the book is structured.

Bukhari and Muslim are the two most authentic books after the Hadeeth. Does this mean that they narrated all the authentic Hadeeths in the world in their Saheehs? No. 

Imam Muslim said:

ليس كل حديث وضعته هاهنا وإنما وضعت هاهنا ما أجمع عليه

Imam Bukhari authenticated Hadeeths outside his Saheeh. Some are mentioned by at-Tirmidhi in Ilal As-Sughra.

Imam Al-Hakim an-Naysaboori wrote a book called Al-Mustadrak which means التعقيب and he came after Bukhari and Muslim and said that they forgot Hadeeths and they meet their conditions. First of all Bukhari and Muslim never conditioned to bring all the Hadeeth Saheeh in their book.

Is it fair to say the authentic Hadeeths outside Bukhari and Muslim are little?  

Al-Iraqi said: 

و لم يعُمّاه و لكن قلّما *** عند ابن الأخرم منه قد فاتهما 

ورُدّ لكن قال يحيى البر *** لم يفت الخمسة إلا النّزر

There are different views:

1) Ibn Akhram holds the opinion that the Hadeeth Saheeh they didn’t bring in their Saheeh are little.

2) Yahya (I.e. Imam Nawawi) refuted Ibn Al-Akhram and said the Saheeh Hadeeth outside are much, but what you should have said was the Hadeeth that are outside the 5 Books (Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, At-Tirmithi, An-Nasaa’i) are little.

Iraqi corrected what Yahya said (?)

All of the Hadeeths in Bukhari are 7275 with the repetitions. When you exclude the repetitions it becomes 4000.

Without repetition all the Hadeeths in Muslim are 4000 as well.

Some Scholars will not take this opinion. Some said there are 8000, others said 12000. Why are there different opinions on the number of Hadeeths in Muslim and Bukhari?

1) Muslim and Bukhari especially had اختلاف الروايات. Thousands of people took from Bukhari and the copies vary

2) Some Scholars rounded it to the closest digit 

Ibn Hajar counted it the best. In Fath Al-Bari he mentions the number of the Hadeeths in each chapter and at the end of the book he mentions the amount of hadeeths as a whole and he counted it as 4,000.

Some Scholars considered additional Hadeeths of Bukhari and Muslim.

Hakim did a Mustadrak of Bukhari with many Hadeeths so it showed they missed many hadeeths. To make a Mustadrak of it is wrong because it is as if they conditioned to mention all the authentic Hadeeths and they didn’t.

There are three Scholars who correct the mistakes of Hakim:

1) Ad-Dahabi. He did a Mustadrak on Hakims Mustadrak. 

2) Ibn Muraqqiq (the teacher of Ibn Hajar) did an Istidrak on Ad-Dhahabi 

3) As-Suyooti then did an Istidrak on Ibn Murraqiq