اختصار علوم الحديث 2

بِسْم الله الرحمن الرحيم

 اختصار علوم الحديث لابن كثير 

The author goes into something known as المستخرجات. 

What is المستخرجات? 

أن يعمد إمام من أئمة الأحاديث إلى كتاب مشهور من كتب السنة فيخرج أحاديث الكتاب بأسانيد لنفسه بأسانيد هو من غير طريق صاحب الكتاب  

An Imam from the great Imams will read Sahih Bukhari, for example, and go through a chain other than the path of the author. 

Some Books of مستخرج

- Abi ‘Awanna on Sahih Muslim

- Mustakhraj al-Barqani

- Mustakhraj Isma’eeli

- Mustakhraj An-Nu’aym Al-Asbahani

Benefits from المستخرجات

1) The benefit that ‘Iraqi mentioned - You put the station of authenticity higher (الزيادة في قدر صحيح)

2) Different wordings may come which explain the other wording.

3) It makes the chain shorter because one might narrate the Hadeeth longer while the other chain might narrate it shorter. It makes us closer to the Prophet ﷺ from the latter one. (العلو)

4) If the Hadith has عنعنة in it (although the عنعنة in Bukhari is always considered connected) and you find a Mustakhraj which narrates it with more clarity such as حدثنا، أخبرنا، أنبأنا, it gives you the extra comfort. (تصريح المدلسين بسماع و تحديثه)

5) Sometimes Bukhari will say حدثنا محمد, but you will not know which محمد he is referring to. The Mustakhraj will show you which محمد it is. (تميز المحمل من رواته)

These are not the only benefits. If you go to Sakhawwi’s Fat’h Al-Mugheeth which is an explanation of Iraqi’s Alfiyyah, he lists 20 benefits of the Mustakhrajaat.

Some people hear books they never heard before and start read it whilst forgetting books that matter. Don’t go reading the Mustakhrajaat if you haven’t read Sahih Al-Bukhari yet, or you’ve finished Sahih Bukhari but not read Abu Dawud, An-Nasaa’i, etc. It’s upon the student of knowledge to give importance to the more important books.

We have a statement from Imam Ash-Shafi’i who says he hasn’t seen a book more authentic than the Muwatta of Imam Malik. How do we reconcile that with saying that Bukhari is the most authentic book?

Shafi’i is before Bukhari. The four Imams came before the six books of Hadith. Although Imam Ahmed did see Sahih Bukhari he was before Bukhari in age. 

So when he praised the Muwatta, it was the best at its time. Imam Malik’s Muwatta remained even though other scholars wrote with him at his time. The deeper your sincerity is the more Allah will let your knowledge spread. However there are Ahadith in this book which are Mursal, Munqati’, Balaghaat (disconnected). You cannot criticize him for bringing Hadith like this because for him you are allowed to use them as proofs. And Ibn Al-Barr in his book At-Tamheed brought a chain for all the Hadeeths that are Balaghaat in Muwatta except for four. 

Ibn al-Barr worked hard on Muwatta of Imam Malik and he broke it into two: 

a) The Tamheed

He wrote this for 30 years based on the Hadeeth only. 

b) Al-Istidhkar

Then he wrote this book which is another explanation of the Muwatta but he did not just focus on the Hadeeth, but the views of the jurists that Malik mentioned in his Muwatta.

The four books of Hadith after Bukhari and Muslim are Abu Dawud, An-Nasaa’i, At-Tirmithi, Ibn Majah. They take a station lower than Bukhari and Muslim because they contain Hadith which are Sahih, Hasan, Da’eef. And Ibn Majah has a Hadith which is Mawdoo’. 

The author here mentioned that great Scholars by the names Al-Haakim Abu Abdullah An-Naysaboori and Al-Khateeb Al-Baghdadi both called At-Tirmithi “Al-Jaami’ As-Saheeh” which implies that it only contains Sahih Hadiths. Other Scholars also included An-Nasaa’i. Iraqi could not accept this and said: 

و من عليها أطلق صحيحا *** فقد أتى تساهلاً صريحا

The books that come after these four are the Musnad of Imam Ahmed and the Musnad of Tuyalasi. Iraqi said:

و دونها في رتبة مما جعل *** على المسانيد فيدعى الجفلا 

كمسند الطيالسي و أحمدا

Although there are less weak Hadeeths in the Musnad of Imam Ahmed than Abu Dawud because his conditions are stronger, it takes a rank lower than Abu Dawud because he related his Hadiths without organizing it. He just mentioned all the Hadiths narrated by a narrator under his name whereas Abu Dawud categorized his Hadiths according to their jurisprudential ruling, and the latter takes precedence over Hadiths that are just thrown in there. Ibn Taymiyah mentioned that Ahmed ibn Hanbal has stronger conditions than Abu Dawud in Majmoo’ Al-Fatawa Vol. 1 No. 250.

Iraqi said it is not right to call Musnad At-Tayalasi a Musnad. A Musnad is where the Hadith are put without sequence, not categorized in under Fiqh chapters. If you go to his book you will find it is categorized, so it is a Sunan. However he did have a Musnad, but it is lost.

The Hadeeths in Musnad Ahmed are 30,000 while other Scholars said 40,000. It contains Hadiths which are Saheeh, Da’eef, Hasan, and Mawdoo’. There are 9 Mawdoo’ Hadeeths as mentioned by Iraqi, while others mentioned 40. Ibn Hajar defended the Musnad and explained these Hadiths in a book called Al-Qawl al-Musaddad Fee Adh-Dhabb Al-Musnad. 

سِلَفِي means he had a slit on his bottom lip. He has a book about the conditions of the 5 Imams (شروط الإئمة الخمسة). After him Al-Hazami came and wrote a book on the conditions of the 6 Imams, adding Ibn Majah. 

Abi Tahir As-Silafi said that the Scholars unanimously agreed on the authenticity of the Hadeeths in the 5 books, however, Ibn Salah and others denied that saying it was leniency on his side to say that. There are many weak Hadeeths in them, although they are higher in rank than the Masaneed.